Girl Scout Camp

Last Sunday I packed up three girls and their assorted belongings and drove an hour and three-quarters to deliver them to Girl Scout Camp. Megan and Kate had been last year, but this was Brianne's first year to sleep in three-sided Adirondack "cabins" and hike up and down dusty hills to various activities and gatherings -- meals, campfire circle, program and crafts. They were in for a world of fun, packed into a week that would fly by and seem like forever, all in one!

The Girl Scout camp is called Kamp Konocti, and it is held each year at the Boy Scouts of America's Masonite Navarro campground. (The campground has been around forever -- last year we visited my parents shortly after Megan got back from camp and my dad rustled around in a stack of pictures to produce a photo from the mid-1950s of himself smiling up from the floor of an awfully familiar looking Adirondak cabin, at the exact same campground!) It is entirely volunteer-run, and the dedication of the administration (Director, nurse, Counselor in Training Advisor, etc.), the Unit Leaders and Counselors, and the three levels of C.I.T.'s was impressive. Seriously -- YOU try to get a couple dozen seven- to fourteen-year-old girls up, dressed, and down a hill to breakfast in the chilly redwood-shaded campsite -- or even more exhausting, those same girls ready for bed and in their bunks in the dark! LOL

The camp lasts for six nights, and the girls are not allowed to talk to anyone from home (unless your mom is one of the many volunteers, in which case you have to refer to her by her camp name -- Elasta Girl, Ziggy, Rafiki, Froggy, Glitter, etc., not "mom" -- or risk having to sing a silly song in front of everyone), except for letters or cards in the mail. They keep the girls so busy there is very little time to get homesick... unless you count the tears that come when the letters are distributed. (My best friend was a counselor again this year, and again in Megan's unit. Apparently the mail gets delivered to camp around 4 PM, which means it doesn't get sorted for camper delivery until after dinner -- a prime hour for getting a little Mommyitis. It became a little easier if they held the mail until breakfast the next day, right before a lineup of exciting activities that were sure to distract the girls from missing home quite as much.)

Each night accomplishment awards are given out to the units -- Clean Cabin Award, Lights Out Award, On Time Award, Girl Scout Way Award, Spirit Award, etc. Megan's group -- Hopi -- won the Spirit Award the first night, on the condition that they stop singing their unit song the entire way through camp as they made their way to or from any area. Apparently they were quite... spirited... and since they were the absolute last campsite, they had a long trek anytime they had to go anywhere. LOL (I wish I could reproduce it here for effect, but I think you'd have to hear it... "Brr, it's cold out here! There must be some HOPI in the atmosphere! I said, Brr! It's COLD out here! There must be some HOPI in the ATMOSPHERE! I said BRRRR!...")

After a week of singing, crafting, and general merriment, camp came to a close. The parents once again made the drive out to camp to pick up their girls -- dusty, tired, hoarse, and chattery girls -- and load up the cars with sleeping bags, pillows, suitcases and sleeping mats -- this time all dusty, damp, and thrown willy-nilly in bags instead of neatly folded, and some belongings in another person's bag entirely. (We lost a jacket, but gained a random sock and a bottle of camping soap. I have yet to come across a mug from the mess kit, too...or take a total inventory of all the clothes, as they are still in the laundry process.) There was the close of camp program, first -- each unit put on a skit, some of which were surprisingly involved and intricate, and the C.I.T.s were awarded ribbons of valor (these are high schoolers who volunteer to assist all week, and they totally deserve all kinds of kudos) -- and then it was mass exodus.

The adult counselors were the last to leave each site, after making sure each girl got signed out safely and all her belongings got hauled down the hill, plus packed up their tents (adults sleep in tents, strung up between the Adirondacks) and double-checked that the site was returned to pristine condition. Because I was picking up Cari and all three girls, I hung out a little longer and actually drove the van up into the camp areas to load up the massive stack of belongings, rather than attempt to tote them armful by armful down the path, around the other campsites, and down the hill to the parking area. (Remember, Megan, Kate and Cari were in the furthest-out campsite!)

It was a circus clown in the car trick to get packed -- we barely got everything and everyone into the van, even after stuffing some things into impossibly small spaces. Kate was sort of wedged in the backseat, stuff piled on the bench seat next to her and a sleeping mat that belongs to another girl in her troop stuffed into the space that the aisle afforded us -- but we had the one who gets carsick in a front seat (with nothing in front of her, and a bag handy) and I could see out the rear-view mirror (but only barely through the thick layer of dust on the rear window!) so we were off~!

On the drive home Cari was dreamily planning her return to civilization -- "First a shower, then a bath, then another shower for EVERYONE! And oh, man, I have to do a nasal wash in the worst way! I have dust EVERYWHERE!" -- and everyone was looking forward to using a flush toilet again. (The bathrooms the girls use all week are called "biffys" and they lack that feature that we take for granted... a water tank, a handle, and the reassuring whoosh of waste going away.) Kate and Brianne were anxious to see Ms. Kitty (and Daddy, of course) and Megan was excited to see Thomas and Daddy. We made one unscheduled stop to settle a tummy and another stop for food -- after the windy road! -- and then we pulled up to our house and did the greet and hug thing before unloading all the stuff and sorting it into two piles: one to take into the house, and one to pack into another van for the remaining drive.

After the hugs and hearing all the funny camp stories and songs ("Hi, my name is Joe, I have a wife, three kids and I work in a button factory..."), the best part of yesterday was when Matt and I went up to go to bed, and I could check on both sleeping kids, safe and sound in their own beds before I went to my own. What could be better in life than that contented feeling -- unless it could possibly be that contented feeling WITHOUT the doggone Joe and the button factory song running through your head??