Name: Zack            Date: Wednesday, November 13, 2013   

Teacher: Miss Babb               

Teen Ranch: The Journey that Lies Behind

            Would you think a place called "Teen Ranch" would be so modern? Believe me, I didn't. I thought it would be old and run down or maybe just a giant barn where we did activities. It wasn't even close to that. It was a nice giant piece of land with a huge hotel looking building where all of the cabins were. Don't even get me started about the activities. During free time you had a world of possibilities. When you walked into your cabin you had loads of space (again because the land was huge because the building was huge.) And finally, when we went horse-back riding we walked through a huge forest, which was still on the land! During those activities, I knew how much fun I was going to have!

Free time was probably one of the best things we had the chance to do at Teen Ranch. There were so many intricate possibilities and we had the chance to experience them all. We could jump on the trampolines which was by far the most exciting thing I did during free time. I learned how to land a front flip, and do it on my feet! I felt incredible when I was doing flips left, right and centre. When I was in the air my feet so far off the ground, I was soaring through the air on that bouncy trampoline. While I was jumping on the trampoline half the people were waiting in the lines and the other half were at the hose pen petting the light delicate horses. Well they weren't very delicate. One bit two of my friends stepped on someone's foot and kicked the same person. The horses weren't all that mean though. The guy got kicked and stepped on because he ran up behind the horse which startled it and the two guys that got bit put their hands to close to the horse's mouth. Other than that, it was nice that everyone was all together and that we could hang out away from school. The land was huge and that was perfect because there were a lot of people that wanted to run around and play games. That was the free time during the day but the free time at night was even better! No one could see anything because it was almost pitch black which was the best part! Jumping on the trampoline was better because you didn't even know where you were going. Running around and playing games was also better because no one could find you. I don't know why people brought flash lights because not seeing anything would've been a dream but people still seemed to enjoy it. Free time wasn't the absolute best thing we did at Teen Ranch but it was one of them!

Living, sleeping and actually being in the cabins was quite an enlightening experience. I was in the Murphy cabin along with Aaron, Zach, Adam, Kevin, Nathan and John. We all had our good times and our bad times. Like one time Zach fell off of his bed (top bunk) when him and I were alone cleaning up our cabin. I don't know how but he just slipped off his bed almost like he was trying to. Another time Nathan fell asleep right away but in the middle of the night, he started to snore like there was no tomorrow. "Hghghg". That's all you could hear throughout the whole cabin and maybe the other cabin next to us. Speaking of annoying, at about 11:00 at night everyone wanted to fall asleep, well kind of. So Zach started a game of Ghost town. Everyone was laughing and giggling and making weird noises. "Hehehe", "rooow", "arrrng". No one could sleep. Then at about 11:30 everything was quiet. I knew it wouldn't last too long though. "Open the window it's too hot!!!" Nathan yelled in a panic. That really started conversation. Then finally after 10 minutes of talking someone, no one knows who, yelled "shut up!" That worked like a charm. No one said a word until morning. When everybody did wake up from their almost 5 hour sleep, they were dead tired. You couldn't see it but I could tell. They didn't really look that tired but the mistakes they were making gave it away. "Do I sleep on the bottom or top bunk?" Nathan asked with confusion. "Does the toothpaste go on the left or right side of the hair brush?" Aaron moaned while holding his soap. Oh yeah, because toothpaste goes on a hair brush. The cabin life wasn't at all what I expected it to be. But it was still better than staying at home without any friends around in the morning and night.

Horse-back riding was a different experience than many others.  There were so many things we had to do before we could get to the ride and finally did get there.  There were still a lot of things we had to do.  First before the ride we had to go to the basement for the orientation to horse-back riding.  "Who has been hors -back riding before", Agatha asked.  Many hands went up including mine.  Agatha started talking about how to get on a horse and not run or scream when approaching or being near the horse.  She went on and on with valid rules and instructions.  When she finished with that we finally started walking to the barn in the freezing cold weather.  Luckily, I was prepared!  We walked through the doors to get our helmets and put our hats, gloves etc. on.  Once we had our helmet on we could then walk out to the horse pen to pick a horse.  "Hmm, who to pick", I said to myself when I walked out with my big bulky boots and protective helmet.  A horse suddenly caught my eye.  I ran up to it looking around to see if it was taken.  It wasn't.  The horse trainer was walking around helping people get on the horse.  She came to me and said "Oh you got Mouse".  She helped me hop onto my horse and get ready to ride.  Mouse started to walk around but I didn't want him to.  "Whoa" I said while tugging the reins.  He didn't really listen so I yelled louder, "Whoa!"  He didn't listen again.  "Ok third times a charm", I said in my head.  "Whoa!!"  Finally he stopped.  "Click, click", I said as loud as I could to make Mouse start to walk again.  It didn't work.  I was starting to get the impression that Mouse wasn't very obedient.  "Ok let's go guys!" the trainer yelled.  The other trainer came over to me and said that Mouse had to be behind Elvis.  We started to walk through the forest slowly.  There was a lot of muddy water and horse poop.  It was kind of disgusting but I wasn't the one stepping in it.  My horse was.  But it was still there in the middle of the path.  After we got out of the forest we walked into a field with a bunch of grass.  We had clear instructions to not let our horse eat grass.  My horse did about 10 times.  I tried pulling my horse's head up but he didn't even care.  He kept stuffing his face with grass. So that's what's so memorable about horse-back riding.  Between the poop and the muddy water, everyone wins.  I would love to do it again someday.  Only if my horse is obedient though.

Teen Ranch was definitely different from what I expected. Between the free time, cabin life and horse-back riding it was definitely a unique experience. Free time was great because the choices you ad were endless, the cabin life was definitely more remarkable than staying at home and the horse-back riding was an overwhelming experience (for the second time.) Long story short, Teen Ranch is a place I would always go back to. If I do go back, will they remember me?