Koreshan Stste Park

For another class project i had to be "Unplugged" from technology.  I did this with my friend Jacque and her boy friend Jeff.  We chose to camp at the nearby Koreshan State Park for multiple reasons, first and for most, because I wanted to learn more about our communities history.  This area is not only a state park, but also a historical site, camp grounds, and is one of the most biologically diverse area’s I have ever been to.  Being a twenty year with attention deficit disorder, this also translated into having enough activities to not get bored while being independent from technology and world outside of the park. Starting this adventure, we weren’t really sure what resources would be available while camping, so we planned ahead for all occasions, packing toilet paper and water resources.   To our surprise, there was a fire pit, bathrooms and trash dump (in walking distance,) nature trails that backed up to our camp site, canoeing, and we discovered that we were in an area with a very unique history. 

Our camping trip started in the afternoon, shortly after day light savings time change occurred.  We arrived to our campsite around 3:00, assuming that we had plenty of time to set up our tents, make food and use the rest of the day light to enjoy outdoor activities.  We were wrong in this assumption.  Luckily, we put our tents up before anything else. After putting the tents up we realized the sun was already beginning to fall, so we quickly worked at making a fire to use as our new light source as well as to cook our food and keep us warm.  Once we made the fire we thought that we were pros at being one with nature, but again we were soon proven wrong.  For dinner, we decided to have baked beans, corn on the cob, and stakes.  This is embarrassing but our first challenge was not having an electric can opener. We borrowed a small hand help can opener from a neighboring camp site and dug away at the can.  Jacque managed to open a small hole, but it was not one big enough to get the beans out.  We skipped the beans, and moved on to corn and steak. The corn turned out fine, but the steaks didn’t.  Without adequate lighting, we couldn’t really see how burnt the steaks were getting. We luckily brought hot dogs as a backup. 

One big life saver with helping our lighting situation was the use of candles.  I brought a few large candle to keep light were we needed it the most.  One was on the picnic table, one in the tent, and a few tea light candle to make a path way to see from the tent to the picnic table.  This helped but was still very far from the amount of light we take for granted every day.  Another issue that arouse from the candles, was that after blowing them out we could no longer see them.  While I was trying to walk back into the tent I kicked one of them and it covered my foot in the hot wax. 

After dinner, we made smores and went on a hiking adventure to discover the Koreshan Settlement.  We used flashlight because it was too dark without the use of some form of artificial light.  We discovered that the Koreshan people we very innovative for their time.  Their community was built 1894 with the goal of everyone working for the good of all.  It was made to be the “New Jerusalem.”  They were a celibate community with no crime, tobacco or drugs.  They traded exotic plants and ground-breaking ideas with Tomas Edison, and also entertained Mr. Edison and his wife with the events held in the Art Hall.  By looking at the buildings, exotic plants, and the history of the people, you could tell they were very advanced for their time.  One problem we occurred while visiting this site was that my camera died.  This led me to cheating with the experiment. When we got back to the camp grounds, I got my cell phone out of the car and call my boyfriend to come drop off my camera charger.  At our campsite, there was an outlet, but charging my camera was the only time we used it.

Back at the camp site we hung out by the picnic table, but soon realized it was very dark, buggy, and that we had ran out of outdoor activities to do.  We put out our fire, packed away our food into the other tent, hung up our garbage (to keep out of reach from animals) and washed our dishes with the running water hook up provided.  We couldn’t see everything that we were doing, so we just assumed we got it all and went into the tent for the night. We played Scattegories by candle light.  This was a lot of fun because no of us were distracted by outside technologies or obligations.  It gave a real sense of being in the moment,   as well as allowed me to get to know Jacque and Jeff better as individuals.