I stood at the pinnacle of the mountain, full of awe the marvelous view. From behind me, I heard Art, our teacher, announce, “From here you can see both the highest and lowest points in the continental U.S!
Five days beforehand, a handful of students from my school, myself included, had boarded the flight to
After our arrival in
Later that day, we continued on to camp in one of the designated camping areas, setting up our three-person tents and refilling our water bottles. Our teachers came around and checked that all our possessions were thoroughly secured, warning us that the high winds could blow things so far away that we would never retrieve them. That included our tent bags. Thankfully, no one lost theirs.
For the rest of the week, we traveled to whatever nearby attractions the teachers thought best suited that day’s schedule and weather. I thoroughly enjoyed the hikes we took up mountains, even once stumbling upon an abandoned mine with a sort of blue-green stone scattered about its entrance. Another time we visited an old canyon. It held great examples of fossils and the boulders scattered throughout by old floods dwarfed us all. The sense of awe was overwhelming. We drove through rocky roads, passing forests of cacti and flowering bushes. I loved these sights, reveling in the open spaces and freedom. I also basked in the knowledge that it was our trip that was lucky enough to be there the same week the flowers of this rocky desert bloomed and covered this rugged landscape with their glory.
On our final two days, we planned on camping on a snowy mountain. Though I, tucked up in my sleeping bag, found this to be a thoroughly original and enjoyable experience, we were forced to move to a lower camp site the next night. The asthmatic people had problems and one person, who had lost her sleeping bag, had been too cold to actually sleep.
The following day, we climbed a mountain, which I am pretty certain was called
On our final day, we visited
Upon returning home, I was happy to bathe for the first time it a week. However, I would have gladly gone weeks longer in order to see more of
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