Adventure Is Out There...! Part 2: Our Adventures A-Top the "High Ropes"

On March 25 Natalie and I left for an overnight school field trip to the Newcombe Ranch in New Braunfels, TX. The ranch is a resort mainly for tennis players (Google John Newcombe for background) but they also have programs for teambuilding training, which is why Natalie and her Quest classmates came. I came as a chaperone.

We arrived Thursday night, had dinner and then they divided everyone into several groups for a nighttime compass orienteering activity in the nearby forest. While Thursday had been a bright, sunny and warm day, the night before reminded us that it was springtime in Texas - major gullywasher thunderstorm. So our escapades in the forest were rather dark, wet and muddy. There was a beautiful moon out though, and it had the most amazing ring around it! So after about an hour figuring out how to read a compass and follow its bearings with flashlights, our group made it to the campfire to meet the other groups for s'mores. Then a muddy walk/ride back to our "summer camp" -like dorms for a quiet, cozy night's sleep with 50 chatty and hyper 12-year-old girls! Thank you to Apple for the creation of the iPod!! It kept me quite calm in the midst of the chaos until lights out at midnight.

The next morning after breakfast the kids were divided into groups again and tried their hands at several teambuilding exercises. Here are a few pics:

The challenges were trickier than they appeared and as an on-looker for most of the time, it was hard for me not to jump in and tell them the easiest way to finish the tasks. Guess that's just another lesson in patience for me!

After lunch came the fun - most anticipated - part of the trip. The high-ropes courses.

I'm sure the pictures do a better job than I can explain it, but basically it's climbing up 30-50 foot towers to either jump, swing, zip-line or tight-rope walk between towers. It's all "relatively" safe. We were harnessed in and hooked up to ropes to prevent us from falling if we slipped. Still, no matter how many times I told myself "I won't fall, the ropes will hold me" my hands shook and my knees knocked at the top of the towers. I climbed the 36 foot tower to stand on the top of the 12 inch diameter, swaying "telephone pole" and then jump off it while grabbing a brass ring suspended about six feet away. It was a serious adrenaline rush, that is after I was down on the ground! While I was up there I was just concentrating on what I needed to do to get down. I knew if I thought about it for too long, I'd FREAK OUT!!

Natalie was awesome too. She climbed up all the different towers with confidence and a healthy amount of fear. (My level-headed daughter!) She jumped for the brass ring, walked across the 50 foot high tight-rope to zip-line down and also team-tight-rope-walked with her friend Hannah (and me another time) across diverging wires to ring a bell at the other end. I also did the tight-rope and zip line. I love the zip line - brought back memories of the Costa Rican rainforest!

After we finished up on the ropes course, it was time for me to head back towards Austin, while Natalie had some free time and dinner while they waited for the buses to take them home. I however wasn't going home. I was off for the next part of my Adventure Weekend - the Zooma Women's Half Marathon in Bastrop, TX! Stay tuned for tomorrow's final installment of Adventure Is Out There...! Part 3: Kellie ran 13.1 miles?!

Adventure is out there...! Part One: The Phantom

So the past couple of weeks have been filled with new adventures for Natalie and me.
On March 18, Natalie and I went to a matinee showing of Phantom of the Opera. It was wonderful. I had already seen the musical about 15 years ago, but this time was so cool mainly because I got to bring along one of my favorite "besties" (Miss Nat) and because we had third row center seats!!!!! Talk about being "in" the action! No kidding, in the beginning, when the monterous chandelier explosively lights up and rises up and out into the audience, we were straight in its horizontal pathway! Then it stopped right above us about 15 feet up and rose to the top of the theater DIRECTLY ABOVE US!! Now if any of you have seen Phantom, you know what this means... what goes up, will come crashing down at the end of Act One! I kind of whispered to Natalie what was going to happen, but she still jumped out of her seat when she looked up and saw the chandelier free falling down on top of us. It did make an abrupt slide to the stage before it actually crashed, but it took some of the intermission for our hearts to stop beating in our throats. (Okay, that was probably a little overly-dramatic, but I am talking about Phantom here!)
The entire performance was awesome! To be so close to the stage to actually see the faces and expressions of the actors was way cool. And the costumes and special effects (besides the chandelier) were really spectacular! There was one point when flashes of fire explode from the stage and we felt the heat almost before we saw the flashes.
We went with several of my friends and their husbands and were able to snap a few pics after the show in the theater before the ushers reprimanded for taking pictures. Even with the curtains closed, we still weren't supposed to take pictures - huh? Like they're afraid we're going to recreate a red-velvet curtain? Anyway, when I get the pics from Christy, I'll post them.
Part Two (coming after I download the pictures): Our Adventures A-Top the "High Ropes"...