Reflection on McCall

This weekend in McCall was one of the best weekends I've experienced here at school. But definitely not for the reasons that it should have been. I really enjoyed getting to spend time and talk to some of the people who don't hang around the dorms. I felt like for the first time we were really a living learning community. Everybody just talked to everybody. There were no groups, no cliques, nothing like that. I enjoyed getting to have snowball fights with everyone.
However, when I left for the trip I was anticipating a weekend of hiking, going to the hot springs, cosmic ice skating, visiting the town of McCall, and other ways of utilizing the fact we were in McCall. Other than the snowball fights, we failed to utilize the fact that we were in McCall. We didn't go to the hot springs (no one's fault), didn't get to go cosmic ice skating, and didn't get to explore the town. I feel like everything we did could very easily have been done here in Boise.
I struggled with the team building exercises for a few reasons. I was disappointed in the fact that we didn't get to go the hot springs. Coming back after missing out on the hot springs and doing team building games was not fun. Second, I feel that as a group we have advanced past the typical team building exercises that everyone does at orientation. We have already been living together for 2.5 months. Doing basic teamwork exercises are boring when we already know so much about each other. And for my last reason. The outdoors were a huge part of my life when I was growing up. Riding motorcycles, shooting guns, hiking on trails and blazing our own trails, tracking (but not killing) wildlife, exploring mountain ranges, and mapping areas of wilderness were on my basic weekend to-do list. For me to be in such a beautiful place, with extraordinary weather, cooped up building towers with spaghetti and marshmallows tore apart my insides. I wanted to hike every trail, visit every lake, climb up to every viewpoint that McCall has to offer. And we just didn't do any of that. My mind was always wandering to the outdoors, and I found myself staring outside because I really wanted to be out there.
As far as what I learned, I wish I could report back more. I didn't learn much at all. I went to a public elementary school, public middle school, public junior high, and public high school. I have heard all the speeches about racism, sexism, equality, LGBT rights, and equality of religion. Every single year from 6th grade to 12th we were forced to read a book about racism. I understand the want to educate us about equality.We have already been educated. We get it.
When I applied for the LRLLC, I was anticipating going hiking, biking, rafting,  rock climbing, wake boarding, water skiing, snowshoeing, and snow skiing nearly every weekend. I had prepared myself for every single weekend to be packed full of recreational activities. I am starting to find out that the emphasis of this program is not on the recreation part; recreation seems to be one of the last things on the priority list. I look back at the packet that was given to us at the beginning of the year, and a great deal of activities in the packet just didn't happen.
This wasn't written to offend anyone. But the topics here are kind of sensitive, and hard to bring up gently. I feel like these were some point that needed to be addressed sooner or later.