Exactly one year ago today I left my comfortable house on Hilson Road and drove four hours south to the unknown territory of Gainesville, Georgia.
The reason? The reason, my faithful readers, was for the mysterious ten-day preparation to the World Race they refer to as training camp.
I traveled with two sidekicks, April Wright and Chelsea DiPaolo, and on the way down we calmed our uneasy nerves by jamming to music (including but not limited to: Taylor Swift, John Mayer, Elton John and the brilliant musician known as Ice Cube).
After a while we decided to quiz each other on how much we knew about our future squadmates. At this point we weren’t even sure who was on J or K squad.
Chelsea’s knowledge of people was untouchable – she had done her fair share of blog-stalking. April knew a handful of people as well, and I was left feeling inadequate …Hollis Johnson was from where? Which guy looked like Will Ferrel? And why isn’t Grant Tarjick a vegetarian?
As we drew nearer to Gainsville we wondered if we were passing anyone who was also on their way to training camp. In order to make sure, we began screaming people’s names out the window. HOLLAND COX!!! NICK AND LACEY PAULEY!! TAMICA SLOAN!
No one responded.
Since dinner wasn’t going to be provided, we stopped at a Ruby Tuesday before arriving at our destination. April and Chelsea ordered margaritas, and we discussed whether or not the World Race was going to be full of Christians who were more similar to our beliefs… or more extreme. Would we get in trouble for having alcohol? What if we had recently kissed someone? And do they have a stance for or against human/vampire love stories?
We decided to stick together no matter the case, and continued on our way.
As we pulled up to training camp we saw a handful of staff members in matching blue shirts. They approached our window, and I freaked out. “Turn off that ungodly music! Open your Bibles! Stay calm!” I grabbed the nearest Bible, flung it open and began reading whatever scripture my eyes landed on. I was already worried because I had missed one of the blog deadlines by two days – some staff member had emailed me and said I would not be able to go on the race if I was late in posting my introduction blogs. There was a man standing right by our window. Was this him?
I didn’t know it at the time, but it was Matt Snyder. He seemed nice enough, but I still made sure that he saw I was reading my Bible. He gave us information and sent us on our way.
After we dropped our bags off we approached the big white tent, where a crowd of people had gathered. My eyes quickly scanned the group and landed on two guys. They both had beards, which is why I noticed them. I love beards. Also, one of guys had a number of tattoos practically ripping through his white V-neck shirt, and the other one had crazy red hair to his shoulders.
As I was wondering what, exactly, I had gotten myself into, a staff member came up and handed me one of those “get to know you” sheets. You know, the ones that ask you where you are from, and what kind of fruit you like and one interesting thing about you. I don’t love get to know you sheets. There’s so much pressure – you don’t want to sound boring, but you also don’t want to sound like a show off. Ugh, so much pressure.
I sat down at a table under the tent and began to fill mine out, and in the process met Tim and Joel. Eventually I moved to another table, where I met a girl named Monica. She had long blonde hair, wore lots of rings and had a thrift shirt on. I liked her. We began chatting, and secretly I wished we would be best friends for life.
It was starting to get dark and cold, so I walked back to my cabin to get a long-sleeved shirt. On the way there I met a funny girl in bright pink gaucho pants – her name was Birkleigh.
When I was by the porta-potty a bubbly blonde girl approached me and said, “Are you Hope Mendola?” “Yeah, that’s me.” She let out a small shriek of excitement. “I love your blogs!” Wow, someone blogged-stalked me! I wanted to hug her. “My name is Emily, by the way,” she added. “Nice to meet you, Emily. Sorry I haven’t read your blogs.” She shrugged her shoulders, “I only read a few myself. Yours just really stuck out to me.” Little did I know this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
I made it back to the tent, where we sang “Happy Birthday” to some guy named Dan. I noticed a girl with wild brown hair – her recently sprained foot was propped up on a table, and she looked like she didn’t want to talk to anyone. I thought she was interesting.
Then a man with black track pants and shining white shoes stood on a small wooden stage. He called us all to order, and I couldn’t help but observe that he would make a great talk-show host. He introduced himself as Jimmy.
That night we did an introduction activity that I’m not permitted to speak of – an activity that called for torches and thumbprints and partners. I’ll say no more than that…
The day ended as I crawled into my R.E.I. sleeping bag and pondered over everything that had just happened.
And now, a year later, I am once again pondering that day in my head, and all that has happened since then…
