“You boys ready to go? It’s a long ride, so go to the bathroom now”. said Mr. Gerogola

“Yeah I shot not going in the back”. We all said.

We climbed in the car shoving each other out of the middle seats. James was next to me watching Family Guy. Jack was combing his hair the whole time. Chris was listening to music. I was playing Zombie Road Smash.
        

Halfway during the trip we stopped in a parking lot for a “pee stop”.

When we reached Chris’ driveway we kept driving for what seemed to be an eternity. It had to be a mile long! When we finally got to the house, I was shocked how much property there was. It had to be more than a hundred acres. I have never seen so much vacant land before in my life. I could not believe how much of a camping house Chris’ vacation home was. My Dad and Mom did not like the idea of camping in the woods or hiking to a fishing pond, so I was never exposed to these kind of things. In their mind a nice trip was relaxing at the beach, which is boring to a fourteen year old boy.

At the house, Chris said let's go to the garage where he stored a “mule”, which is an awesome ATV. He drove us around all the creeks, ponds and trails that he made through the woods. Afterwards we came up with a plan to surprise attack our other friends that were coming. We drove around to a hidden base where we camped at - close to the driveway. When we heard their cars coming, Chris and I drove out to the cars to pick them up with the mule while Jack and James waited to ambush them with their airsoft guns. Chris and I slowed down and ducked our heads as they “got lit up.” It was one of the funniest pranks I did to someone. If I did that to my brother I would still be grounded.
        

During that day we came up with a game called “mafia”. It was a really unfair game- Chris, Jack, James and Jason drove around the property in the “mule”, hunting down the rest of us.  If and when they found us, they would shoot us with their airsoft guns- which caused pain and sometimes bleeding. I was really pissed that I didn’t have an airsoft gun to be the mafia and have been bugging my parents for one every since. We played “mafia” everyday of the weekend, but if you were tired of being hunted, you could opt to go fishing.  That part at least was fair.
        

I was not really thrilled to get shot at, so Gavin, Rob and I went to a pond to fish. This is the first time I was actually going to fish.  I was so excited to try fishing until Gavin said, “there's the bait” and threw it on a chair, next to me. The bait was worms.

At first I said eww and Rob and Gavin laughed saying “your scared of that tiny thing?”
“It's all slimy and you can feel it wrap around your finger.” I said disgustedly.
        

We fished the whole day and I gradually began to learn the right places to cast and the proper way to hook your bait, so the fish would always get caught on the hook. I caught two fish. Gavin caught seven. Rob caught one.  I think I did a good job as a beginner!
        

The next day was one of the most spooky days. We ran outside and started to play “mafia”. A lot of us were shot, but Grady was shot so many times that he was practically murdered. He didn’t want to get hit anymore so he started throwing rocks at the “mafia” and refused to leave his spot. Gavin and I were standing by the wood at the time when  all the sudden a really loud roar came from the woods. We sprinted to the house and everyone else followed. They all asked what happened and we said that there was a mountain lion however Grady was still hiding in the woods.. We ran out yelling for Grady and did not find him until an hour later.  We thought we lost our friend but then called him stupid for staying in the woods instead of running back to the house.

Later that day, we played manhunt.

Chris separated us into teams and said, “You five go on Jack's team and everyone else come with me.”

My team (Jack’s)  hid on kayaks in the middle of a pond thinking we were so smart.

“If you want to capture us, jump in,” Jack taunted the other team.

Hayden, acting like a green beret, took his shirt off and dove into the murky pond, swimming towards us. We started paddling away until  we heard howls from wolves and all started sprinting back to the house again. We would howl from the upstairs windows and throw hot dogs to get the wolves’ attention. The wolves kept howling back, but did not go for the food.  During the night, the wolves took the hot dogs because they were gone in the morning.  Unfortunately, the trip ended Sunday morning.  We started the long trip back home.  I realized that was my favorite weekend of the summer. I never experienced the wilderness, but after this weekend, realized that outdoor activities are my favorite things to do.  Having my friends to do it with made it even more special.