Tremont

As most people know, the Junior High classroom ventured on a treacherous, ten hour journey to the beautiful Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. We were to stay for a week at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. There we would brave the wilderness from our air-conditioned dorm. We would climb the mountains on our 8 mile hike, and trek through thorny bushes at Cade’s Cove. We would fall into icy streams while doing physics, and run from the merciless yellow jackets. We would gain knowledge of science, nature, and history. But most of all, we would bond. Bond with nature, bond with our classmates, and bond with the people and wildlife that we encountered.

We participated in many fun but informative classes in which we learned many things. We went salamandering and caught many salamanders. We also embarked on a living history hike in which we went back in time and talked to the old residents of Tremont. We talked to loggers, teachers, and farmers. We splashed around in streams and found interesting organisms that you can’t find in Indiana.

At the dining hall, we would listen to corny jokes, and tried to have no food waste. The table captains, which switched every meal, had the responsibility of serving everyone else at the table. If there was no more of a food that someone wanted at that table, they would ask the table captain to go get more of that food, otherwise known as scavenging. The table captains would do this by going to other tables and seeing if they had any of that food left, and if they did, they might give to the table captain who was trying to obtain food. If no one else wanted anymore, then the table captain would take the food back to his table, and share it with everyone at that table.

It was definitely a peaceful experience. It was a change of pace from our fast paced life and taught us to embrace the nature around us. Sure, we may not have mountains to painfully hike eight, thirsty miles through but that doesn’t mean we can’t take a solo walk in our neighborhood. We learned to connect ourselves to the environment around us. Whether it was during our solo hike, or screaming songs around a campfire, or while we were star gazing, we bonded and had an amazing time.

We wish we were still there.