Please forgive me if this post seems a little different than my other posts. This is my first journal style post and I am sorry if it isn’t consistent with my writing.
On the first day of the 2011 Adult retreat, my friend Jag and I got a ride from my Dad out to Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal. We arrived, paid for our tickets and then my Dad escorted us onto the upper deck of the ferry, where we were assisted by a BC Ferries employee who kindly showed us to the main level of the ferry.
Once we arrived on Bowen, we were guided off the ferry by the ferry staff and began walking up the main road. After having missed the turn onto Cardina, a very small road that I mistook for a parking lot entrance, we were set on our path again by one of the Translink bus drivers who kindly stopped half way up the block and ask us if we were lost.
The trip down Cardina was the familiar trek I had done many times through the years. The winding road that curves at about the point where it meets up with the Bowen lodge was quite uneventful, although I could feel the anticipation mounting. We found the lodge entrance exactly where it had always been and approached the front counter. This was when the first real change hit us. The front entrance way had been completely redone and the absence of our good friend John P. threw me off for a few moments.
After chatting with one of the new managers, David, about the renovations that would be occurring during our stay, we decided to go and tour the grounds for ourselves. Everything was the good and familiar home where I had grown up summer after summer. While the swings I had swung on in my childhood were gone and the sounds of hammering could be heard echoing across the lawn, it was still a sense of relief to see that old place.
It was when we were walking across the waterfront that the second group of campers arrived. We first heard them calling to us from the top of the hill that leads up to the deck and the lodge proper.
This story will be continued shortly in part 2 of this series.
Enjoy,
Alex Jurgensen,
The Camp Bowen Working Group,
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