Take me to the river

For orientation and bonding, Dartmouth does pre-orientation camping trips. My trip was the whitewater kayaking trip, so I came prepared to do some swimming (If any of you remember my last attempt at learning how to whitewater kayak). I arrived on campus, did a little bit of boogying, tried unsuccessfully to learn the names of 150 people and met my twelve trippies.

Before we were allowed to embark on our journey, out leaders warned us that we needed to stay awake through a safety talk. We entered the crowded room, waited for the talk to start but instead some serious singing ensued! All topic were covered from woods-pooping anxiety to a pretty hilarious song about leave no trace set to 'My milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard.'

After that, I didn't know whether the next day we would wake up just to have more dance lessons, but (thank god for my two left feet), we settled into our kayaks in the beautiful Dartmouth second college grant. Eight miles and one portage later we arrived at camp, fully soaked and freezing. The rain didn't help much either. Pulling a typical Lorin, my lips started turning blue and while everyone set up the tarp that they expected us to cuddle under, I went off in search of a dry outhouse to change out of my soaking wetsuit. In a moment of luck, I walked upon a cabin and in my state of complete frozenness, I knocked on the door, only to find that Doug, the owner had deep connections with the college and would rather us sleep in his kayak school's changing rooms rather than in the rain. Who knew that my first bit of Dartmouth networking would be with a bluegrass listening mountain man!


The rest of the trip passed in one of those moments where you can remember the cold, but not that it was bad but rather a really good catalyst for conversations and secret sharing. By the time we arrived at the lodge, our final destination, I felt as if I knew my trippies for much longer than a week.
In a last final bout of fate, My trippies and I ended up staying at the lodge for a few extra hours because our bus rolled off the road a bit. Sounds crazy and it was a bit, but now I have a "never have I ever" conversation starter!
Now that camp is over, (and the trip leaders gave me back my watch!) I think I might be ready to settle into this amazing school.