One of the events we have been looking forward to this summer is Campvention, a week-long RV/Trailer camping event where Deaf campers from all over the United States gather for a week of camping, tradeshows, entertainment, and friends. Held bi-annually and last in California, this year’s Campvention took place in the Amana Colonies in eastern Iowa near Cedar Rapids. The drive to get to Amana was an extremely long one coming from South Dakota, but we finally arrived at 2 p.m. delighted to find that the best spot in the entire campground was reserved for us. Our spot was the closest one to the two buildings where all events took place, and had the easiest access to the bathrooms and showers. We’d like to thank whoever decided to give that spot to us, because not only did that spot have prime location, but we had a large grassy area in front of our RV where the three of us had a blast playing Frisbee when we had free time.

While Campvention is a week-long event, we only had time in our schedule to stop by for three days, so it was already midweek by the time we had arrived. On the night’s entertainment schedule, Deaf magician Matthew “Magic” Morgan was scheduled to give a performance in front of a capacity crowd in the main building. Almost every single one of the 550 campers turned out for a show that busted everyone’s sides. Morgan, who has been performing magic ever since he was six years old, masterfully tricked the audience time after time again, even making a poor woman think that her priceless watch which has been in the family for generations had been shattered. Matthew Morgan performs more than 300 shows a year and travels with his expectant wife from Russia, Lillian. During this show, however, Morgan made an announcement that there would be an all new show with brand new tricks starting in the fall after the duo’s child is born, something that I am certainly looking forward to.

After the show, Branic and I gathered firewood and built a fire for the three of us to make s’mores. We came to the realization that it was the first fire we had built in our 51 days, a sorry fact considering we have been on probably 40 campgrounds in the last month and a half. In an attempt to make amends, we each vowed to make more campfires this summer after coming to the realization that the s’mores were damn good albeit messy and the fact that so much smoke got in my eyes when I threw some extra logs on my fire that I felt like several onions were scrubbed in my eyes.

The next day, our main focus was to create and prepare a 15-minute show for everyone to see during the drama program. Since one show had been cancelled, they asked us to fill the spot and we happily obliged. We decided, for the show, to recycle a slideshow of photographs that we had made in Sacramento, and to add even more pictures to it. In addition to this, we would shoot and produce a special Campvention video and have a crisp edited version to show everyone that night. After a hectic day of running around and interviewing people in addition to preparing the final product, as well as making a homemade movie projection screen since one could not be found, it was all worth it by the time our show began. The end result would be a 15-minute video that everyone said they loved so much, and a question and answer session that lasted more than 10 minutes before it had to be cut short for the next show, and countless people stopping by our RV and campfire (We kept our pledge from last night!) to ask questions they didn’t get an opportunity to. We answered as many questions as we could before dousing the fire, scrubbing sticky marshmallow off our hands, and calling it quits for the night.

Our third and final day at Campvention was unfortunately a very dreary one as rain poured in eastern Iowa, and many of the morning activities were cancelled. Instead, many gathered inside to play cards and chat and the rest stayed in their cozy RVs hiding from the weather. We belonged to the latter group, taking this opportunity to write and edit video. By noon the weather cleared up and everyone gathered at the fields for group pictures. Everyone waited for a long time before taking group pictures because the photographer had yet to show up. It took almost 30 minutes before someone on the committee figured out that there had been no arrangements made at all for a photographer to come. Lucky for everyone, Jed had his trusty Canon Digital Rebel in tow, and he volunteered to take group pictures of campers from each state and mail them to the Campvention committee. Campers from representative states gathered together for pictures showing off how many came from that state and I proudly posed with my fellow Indiana people. By now, we had plenty to do before we had to leave by four and drive to Wisconsin, which included putting up the awning and cleaning up from being parked for three days. I was disappointed when we had to leave because the relaxing, friendly, and above all, social environment of Campvention gave us all a nice release from the fast pace of our trip.

En route to Wisconsin, we stopped in Cedar Rapids, one of the largest cities in all of Iowa and yet smaller than many people’s front yards, hoping to find a Wi-Fi hotspot where we could check our e-mail since we have had absolutely no access to the outside world for the last week. Driving around downtown Cedar Rapids, we couldn’t find a single public hotspot. Living on the East coast comes with certain luxuries which aren’t afforded elsewhere, such as coffee at Starbucks and Xerox machines at Kinko’s on every single block. We did manage to luck out however, and find a wireless internet connection when we were driving on a small street. One of the stores we passed by apparently has wi-fi internet for the store computers, and we were able to take advantage of that connection after circling the block three times and finding the most optimal spot for the highest connection speed. After an hour of reading e-mails and stories about the Lakers’ break-up, we started up The Mary Augusta once again and continued on the road.

Only 40 days and 15 states to go.