Tired. So tired.

You'd think I'd have learned by now. Never come in to work the day after a youth retreat. I'm always next to useless.

See, this weekend was the winter retreat for the youth group at church. And what an adventure it was.

We left Friday afternoon (I got a couple hours off work), and headed to Kurt's family's cabin in Crestline. The girls stayed there and the boys stayed in another cabin we rented.

Now, the town is high enough that they get snow and ice. Which meant I had to drive on ice. On a hill. In a borrowed car. With people in the car. Naturally, that made me very nervous. Especially after the first night. On the way up, we got stopped. Naturally, any attempt to move forward was met by sliding back down the hill. Honestly, I don't know how I avoided hitting the cards behind me, but the brakes seemed to stop me. So I spent about half an hour with my foot jammed on the brake before another leader came, took over for me, and backed it down the hill. Meanwhile, someone trying to go down the hill slid and came within inches of hitting the van.

The other adventure of the weekend came Saturday. The main activity of the day was to be snowboard or skiing for those who wanted to go. We were going to have other activities for those who didn't want to pay the extra, but I was the only one who didn't want to go. So the plan was for me to go, sit in the lodge, and read. I'd be there to hang out with anyone who got tired. The plan worked for the most part in the morning, but just before lunch, one of the students got hurt. He went off a jump wrong, flipped, and landed on his upper back/neck. After being checked out by the medics, they decided he was ok. He spent the afternoon in a car, and I stayed with him. He wanted to sleep, but people kept coming by to check on him, so he didn't get any sleep and I didn't get much reading done.

Then there was coming back Sunday. There were six of us driving, and only two who knew the way. The plan was to carpool. Well, we got seperated leaving town. The two who knew the way went the right way and the rest of us went the wrong way. One of the cars had a GPS in it, so we got home, but we took a much longer way and ran into traffic. The upshot is we wound up getting home an hour and a half late.

On the whole, it was a great trip, however. Everyone seemed to have fun. The messages were good. No major injuries (although the one guy was going to go to a doctor to make sure he's as fine as he feels). And everyone got home.

But boy was it tiring. I "slept" on the floor Friday night. I don't think the fact that I didn't sleep had anything to do with that. Even though I didn't snowboard Saturday, it was an early morning followed by a late night. I don't know if I'll make it through 24 tonight. I'll get the VCR ready just in case.