I was supposed to post this yesterday … even though it took place nearly three weeks ago. I joined the Outdoor Adventures Club mainly for two reasons:

1. I love doing outdoors stuff (sports not included). Rock climbing, canoeing, hiking, camping, etc. are all the good things (and more) that I like to do. I also like to take photos of the outdoors probably due to an inner cry from being immersed in an urban city all day. 

2. I like to meet new people and especially the ones who share the same interests as I do. My friends are generally grouped according to what they like to do socially and not do socially. I wish there was a one-size-fits-all effect.

So I joined and expected to have fun mostly alone honestly. I decided to go to IHOP before heading off to the designated meeting spot. The last thing I needed was to pass out in the middle of the wilderness. Peter dropped me off at the gazebo of GPC’s Dunwwody campus and the vibe kind of reminded me of the stark black and white films of barren wastelands. It was 8 in the morning and it was cold so I guess I should not have expected pepped up individuals. A tall brunette who could’ve passed off as a Ralph Lauren model greeted me and I was passed a waiver. Ralph Lauren solicited a pen from Indiana Jones, a guy with sandy brown hair and crystalline eyes , (which I later found out that I had the exact same one in my purse) to fill out. When it was announced that we would start boarding the bus, I made a beeline for the bus. I passed the first row of seats although they were the most spacious, overlooked the second and made myself comfortable in the third. I scooted in and stiffly bunched myself towards the window on my right. I silently cursed myself for not bringing any headphones to listen to my music with, but I remembered that I had wiped my phone clean the night before. Indiana Jones sat in the row in front of me, while jean-clad Matt McNamara (Nip/Tuck) coldly gazed out the window across from me. An Asian girl abundantly dressed in neon yellow and neon everything sat behind Matt McNamara. We were off at 9:15 am and I figured that we’d be there in two hours.

Thirty minutes in, I felt a poke. Well, more like a shy jab honestly. I slowly turned to my left and peeked through the opening between the double seats. The girl behind me was about my height and stature, maybe ten pounds less, with almond-shaped eyes, side-swept black bangs, and a slightly higher bridged version of my nose. I secretly wanted her nose. She flashed a bright smile.

“Are you Chinese?” she asked ever-so-nicely.

“Yes?” It somehow came out as a question, a preamble to the “And what?” I thought in my head.

“Yay!” ‘Yay?’ She flashed an even brighter smile. “Do you speak Mandarin?”

“No.” She looked at me as if she wasn’t sure if I was Chinese at all or not.

“I don’t but I speak Cantonese,”I chirped in.

“Where are you from?”

“I was born here but my parents are from Guangdong of Guangzhou.”

“I’m Ariel.”

“I’m Machelle,” I said as I angled my hand over the back of my seat. Although a  bit puzzled, she shook my hand regardless.

“You two are Chinese?” We both looked to our left and the girl in neon yellow scooted closer to the center of the bus. Matt McNamara looked over in disbelief that three girls, who were strangers no more than a minute ago, had bonded over the mere fact that they were all Chinese.

“Yes,” Ariel and I said in unison.

“Not to mean anything bad but I thought you were Korean,” she said to Ariel.

“I honestly thought the same thing,” I added with a tinge of shame.

A surprised laugh escaped from Ariel, “I’m from Taiwan.”

The girl in neon said she was from mainland China and I mentioned again that I was from Canton. We marveled at the fact that we were all three different versions of Chinese. Yoyo pointed to a tanned Asian guy in the back of the bus and said that he was Cantonese as well.

“I’m Yoyo,” the girl in neon announced and I was happy to have met an actual person named Yoyo.

We spoke for thirty more minutes exchanging our majors and bits and pieces of ourselves before Ariel decided to take a nap. Yoyo and I spoke for a bit more and she also offered me food. I had gone back into my own space and when I looked back to talk to Yoyo again, I would find her holding a different food item every time. First she had a muffin, then a banana, then a pastry.I had only brought two Zyrtecs, two Advils, a can of Arizona green tea, and two paper towels  that I packed in a small Microsoft bag.

” Weren’t you just eating a muffin earlier?” I asked, confused because I couldn’t figure out if she had eaten two pastries or if it was a muffin and a pastry.

Yoyo looked down at the pastry between her hands, “I didn’t eat a muffin earlier. I only had a banana.”

I furrowed a brow, “Really? I thought I saw a muffin.” I left it at that but I knew I saw a muffin earlier.

Indiana Jones and Matt McNamara exchanged thoughts on portable speakers and headsets while I compared some other models quietly to myself. I slipped the two Advils out and dryly swallowed them. Since the Arizona tea came in a can, I didn’t want to open it just for two Advils.

Big mistake.

I ended up with the nauseating gag feeling in the back of my throat for the next three hours. I’ve dry swallowed many pills in the past but never again when it comes to liquid gels.

Thirty minutes away from the Cohutta wilderness, we pull up to a McDonald’s and I am like, ‘Finally!’ I wasn’t hungry but I figured I’d munch on some fries and drink some Coke to hopefully take the rest of the pills down that were still stuck. After a box of fries and half of my drink, they were still stuck. Yoyo and Ariel got the new McWraps (I hadn’t heard about them at the time but I love them now) and I stuck with my tried and true Big Mac. I thought that specific trip to McDonald’s was quite interesting because the cashier looked as though she had never seen so many colorful people in her entire life. Well, there’s a first time for everything. The McDonald’s was located next to a movie theater that only showed two movies. One movie was a PG and the other was a PG-13.

After we left with our food, I can say it took us literally an hour. We missed a turn and we ended up having to go back. The road then turned into a gravel road that circled a mountain from bottom to top and back down again. The tight turns had just about everyone groaning as the McDonald’s swished around in our stomachs. My nausea came from the stuck pills while Matt McNamara clung onto his stomach with his right hand and held the annoyingly loose window of the rented coach with the other. Howard Tang, the Cantonese Asian guy who had moved up from the back of the bus earlier, kept his head near his knees as he continued to tell himself that he shouldn’t have eaten earlier. Yoyo and Ariel slept through the entire ride of the hill as I snapped photos of the landscape.

When we finally met up with the horse trainer, she led us with her F-350 (not entirely sure honestly) to a campsite in the Cohutta wilderness where her horses were. All 21 people were divided into three groups mixing both the experienced and inexperienced. Prior to the trip, I had only ridden once and that was when I was 5 on top of a pony. Group 1 would go riding first while group 2 (I was a part of) would go hiking. The third would wait and go riding at the end. She explained that smoochy kissing sounds and a nudge with the heel of our shoes/boots meant to go. Saying “Woah woah” followed with a tighter rein meant to slow down and further more to stop. Pull the rein in whatever direction to steer (ex. pull to the left to go left). Horses were to travel in a single file line otherwise you risk the horse trying to kick the one near it.

My horse was one of the only two or three females horses there and her name was Ellie. Ellie was a dark brown American spotted saddle horse. Her mane had alternating blonde and brown streaks and she was pretty round so I had to stand up when riding her a couple of times to step down on the stirrup to straighten up my saddle. We rode for about two hours, ducking under half fallen trees and treading through a beautiful creek. It was an absolutely great day for a horse ride because there was light wind with the cool temperature. I was wedged between Yoyo’s horse who went too slow and Howard’s horse that went too fast, almost passing me a couple of times. Ellie even tried to kick him once because he was too close. I was relieved on the ride back because I went to the back of the line. I allowed myself to trail behind a lot more so Ellie and I could move a little faster to catch up. I enjoyed these moments the most when I didn’t have to worry about tightening her reins, and I just let her trot and a little more than that at times.

On the drive home, we spent most of the ride either asleep or comparing photos, and goofing off. Ariel fell asleep so Howard went and took a photo of her. Yoyo and her cow neck pillow was next.

The guy in front of me, Indiana Jones, turned around and said, “I’ve been trying to figure this out for a long time, but where are you from?”

“I’m actually Chinese, but I can see why you asked,” I replied.

“I couldn’t figure it out. I knew you were part Asian but I thought you were mixed with something else.”

“I get that all the time. People think I’m Mexican. Filipino. Hawaiian.”

“Oh okay then.” He sounded relieved and I jumped on the chance to ask him where he was from because, to save my life, I could not figure out where he was from based on his accent. For all of you who don’t know me too too well, I have a thing when it comes to accents. I’ve basically rid myself of any regional influences just because I wanted to sound like a CNN news anchor. I can tell the difference between handfuls of accents so when it came to this person, it was a bit of a challenge. Indiana Jones had a mixture of New York, Philadelphia, a bit of Southern, and something exotic. It killed me that I couldn’t figure it out. It turns out that he was from the South, but he moved to South America and learned Spanish. I think the emphasis on the r’s and the vowels never left him. He is a really nice guy whose priorities were his outdoorsy hobbies and his girlfriend.

Indiana Jones whose real name is Brooke Livengood (I actually only got his last name at the time) borrowed Yoyo’s phone, switched the camera to the front-facing one and snapped a photo of the Bengali girls in the front row who both had been sleep … with their mouths wide open! I reminded myself not to fall asleep in this crowd!

We tried to stop by at the Mercier apple orchard but we were fifteen minutes too later and they had closed by then. We reached Atlanta by nightfall and I was glad I joined the Outdoor Adventures Club at GPC. I can’t wait for the kayaking/canoeing trip in April. It’ll be the last event of the semester but I’m sure it’ll definitely be fun. I hope you all have enjoyed reading this slightly longer post but I just wanted to make sure I got everything in for this one.