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This is our last full day together. I can’t believe it. I so don’t want to leave. I would give anything to live here all year-round with these people. They laugh at my boardie commune idea, but we all wish it was possible. Johnny, Jodi, Dave, Noah, and I went out to Ponderosa this afternoon. It was the first and only time I’ve been off the grounds. The food was mmm good. They were disgusted at my food touching though. Pudding against mac and cheese isn’t so terrible is it? We saw Darin, Mel, and Potatoe there. Dave swiped my camera and tried to take pictures of an old guy behind us with no teeth. We went into a grovcery store with the intention of helping Johnny find stuff, but everyone got stuck at the magazine rack. Noah and Dave read comic books, Jodi looked at cars, and I looked at a photography magazine. I felt kind of bad for letting Johnny go alone. Noah and I took a final run to the merch tent for all the cheap CDs. I’m sure my Christian music collection has tripled on this trip. We went by Camp Better Than You. Everyone was packing up. It was sad to come back to Camp Frenzy and have the canopies gone, and half the tents taken down. I stuffed things into bags, most of the dirty clothes went into a plastic bag because I was too lazy to fold them. We hurried so we could go to Pedro the Lion. I brought a notebook down there with me because I wanted to write letters to a few people who really touched me this week. Noah had me watch his Cornerstone T-shirt, and when I was done writing, I bought my own and took them back to camp, meeting sg along the way. I came back and enjoyed the show for a while, picked my way through the crowd, and found Noah. I thought it was cool how the dude answered questions from the crowd. It made me smile. Then it started raining, so we went back to camp again, this time to put all our things under cover so they wouldn’t get wet. We met sg again, and Steve as well, and said goodbye with big hugs. We returned for Switchfoot, which was a terrific show. A bunch of kids said it was their birthday, so when someone handed the lead singer a birthday cracker with cheese, he invited one of the birthday kids up and gave him the cracker. I thought that was really awesome. After Switchfoot, we decided to catch the last part of Joy Electric’s acoustic set. I was more comfortable with that than the big show. We said goodbye to Camp Better Than You one last time. Skan and Mike told dumb jokes: “Hey Sean, how do you catch a strange deer?” “I don’t know Mike, how do you catch a strange deer?” “Unique up on it!” Then cute Jaysie joined in. Finally, Mike stood up on the back of the truck like a fire and brimstone preacher, raising his hands and saying “Corna-stone, lemme hear ya!” God, I’m going to miss this place. Leaving Camp Better Than You, I started to cry. “I don’t want to leave!” I sobbed, “This has been way too much fun!” I didn’t want to go back to my life. John said it would be great if we could leave behind our lives and families and school and jobs and all live together. Yeah it would. Right when I got to camp, my parents were there. Andy saw me crying and asked if he could pray for me. So nice, that guy. Before I had a chance to reply, my parents butted their way in, so I started introducing them to people. It was so strange, what they tried to do. Everyone would ask, “So you’re Dusty’s parents?” and they’d say “Yes, we’re Hannah’s parents,” like they were trying to somehow take this week away from me. I asked everyone if we could get together for a boardie picture. Right then, my camera ran out of batteries. I’ll have to get one from someone else I guess. Man, I’m going to miss all my new friends. I gave lots of hugs. Aaron kissed my hair, and I said, “Woo! I got a Loshy kiss!” I hugged Noah, and gave him the letter I wrote. “You’re a prince, Noah,” I said, and roughed up his now blond hair. When it was time to say goodbye, I called for Jen, and we got into the van and pulled away. God, thank you for such a wonderful week. Spiritual Journal for today

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