Swim with the Devil: One Senior’s Favorite Memory
Posted on 07. Jun, 2010 by Erika Kim in Campus
Alyssa Zima (Senior: Biology)
My favorite memory here at PUC happened last year when we went on an unexpected trip to Devil’s Punch Bowl right before school ended. A group of eight or nine of my friends and I snuck out of our dorms and went to Devil’s Punch Bowl after midnight.
On a random night, my roommate, Jaylene, and I were in our room, and like so many PUC students, we were having a fit of boredom. It was midnight, and we were wondering what we should do.
So, we started calling around to other friends, and one of our friends, Caitlin, said she wanted to go swimming. She suggested that we hop the fence and sneak into the PUC swimming pool. Then we called our friend Steven, who already graduated, and when he heard we wanted to go swimming, he suggested that we go to Devil’s Punch Bowl instead.
At first, we were too scared to do it, but another phone call to our friend, Bradley, convinced us we had to go. He just happened to be going to Devil’s Punch Bowl as well, and since we all wanted to do the same thing, we went together. So Jaylene and I, and a bunch of other people snuck out of our dorms and went there in the middle of the night.
When we got there, we walked down the path to Devil’s Punch Bowl, which was interesting because it was dark and we didn’t have flashlights. Eventually the path ended, and we had to climb down a steep slope that was about ten feet long to get to Devil’s Punch Bowl. We were planning on staying at the edges of the pool, and we never intended on getting in, but we ended up getting in and swimming across. Devil’s Punch Bowl is about six feet deep and thirty six feet across of freezing cold water.
We rushed to the car and rushed back to school. On the way back up the path, we climbed back up the path. Since we were all damp our feet got really muddy, and at one point I got stuck when I stepped into a giant puddle that sucked my foot in.
We got back to PUC around 2:00 AM, and my roommate and I walked swiftly into Andre, tried not to look the front desk worker in the eye, skipped the sign in sheet, and ran up the stairs to our room as fast as we could. Luckily, we never got put on restriction.
It was a special experience because it was really out of character for me, and out of the ordinary in general. Usually I’d be studying or doing something else, like going to Denny’s or In-n-Out, but I always look fondly on this trip because it was different; it was spontaneous. Every step we took to make it happen went against our usual rituals and went against every rule, especially curfew. I wanted to experience something new, and this was it.
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