Sometimes, the world moves a bit too fast. As the days go by, the experiences we have start to blend in with each other, every day being the same, monotonous, boring thing. However, the campfire at Windsor Mountain during the first night, changed that. Being able to see the stars without the obstruction of clouds, pollution, or pretty much anything else, while someone else plays guitar, sings, or tells a story, is certainly not something most of us get to enjoy on a regular basis. Although, I hadn’t really thought too highly of it at first, once I actually got to experience it, the time went by in a flash. As the sky slowly darkens around you, the campfire almost forces you loosen up, and appreciate the fact that, sometimes, life isn’t as bad as you think. 

     They say that teamwork leads to success; however, there hasn’t really been a moment in my life where that had really “clicked”, until now. During the second day of the trip, we had an activity where we had to solve various puzzles as a group—which didn’t go so well. At first. During that first activity block, we were assigned to do “initiatives”, which mainly consisted of doing some puzzles with teamwork in mind. The first puzzle was one where we each got a certain picture of a scene, and we had to arrange the pictures in order, without being able to see what anyone else had. We didn’t do too poorly, with only a few pictures out of order, but it took quite a long time to do. That turned out to be a very recurring theme in the next four puzzles. Although one of us almost always had the correct idea of how to complete a puzzle, no one was listening, which led to a lot of failure before their (probably correct) idea finally got some amount of attention. Which was a problem. Failure naturally leads to frustration and annoyance, which made many people (including me) give up after some time. That led to us taking a huge amount of time to complete each puzzle/activity. We didn’t even manage to attempt the last puzzle in time. During the last few minutes of the activity period, the counselors talked with us about this, and I think most of us genuinely listened, and took this advice to heart. The next day, when a similar situation occurred in a different activity, we actually listened to each other, and managed to complete it in a somewhat reasonable amount of time. This just goes to show how much we can accomplish with just the power of teamwork, and makes you think: What could humanity have accomplished, if we had just worked together?

      As I boarded the bus going back to Fenn, I felt a bit of sadness in my heart. Although I had experienced plenty, two days hadn’t been quite enough to enjoy all that Windsor Mountain had to offer, and I probably wouldn’t have the chance to do this again. However, the lessons I learned will stick with me for the rest of my life, and that’s far more valuable than having a bit more fun.