My alarm clock goes off in the quiet cabin and I awake to find my campers standing next to my bed staring at me intently. “Is it time for breakfast yet?” they ask. “Start getting ready, boys!” I answer; “Might as well make a day of it.” A sudden whirlwind runs through my cabin as the seven campers standing before me proceed to rip every piece of clothing they own out of their trunks. “Oh, boy” I sigh and climb out of bed laughing.

After some cleaning and finally rediscovering the floor in our cabin, we head to breakfast. I am not sure what the meal was,  as I left to get a glass of milk and came back to find the boys had demolished every piece of food on the table.  Growing boys–what can you do?

Announcements after breakfast consist of the Word of the Day, Bird of the Day and the crowd favorite, the Ort Report.  As you may have guessed, my campers are by far the loudest and most energetic when it comes to any instance when they are encouraged to make noise and do so with reckless abandon. The camp is Ort-free (ORT stands for organic recyclable trash), meaning we are in COOLSVILLE! The campers are then split up into mentor groups to go out on their morning hikes, and I joined one as well to lend a helping hand.

My group is headed up the Reasonover Creek where, we are told, a mud pit awaits at the end. We set out in search of the fabled pit in hopes of a glorious mud fight. About halfway through, the group’s mentor looks at me and says “Cameron, I know exactly where we are going;  I am very disappointed we are not bushwhacking and hopelessly lost yet!”  Fortunately we had a great time even if we were still on the trail and knew where we were headed. The group passed through the BRX basecamp and left a few “gifts” behind to keep them company. The campers made stick people and left cryptic messages all around their camp–they had a blast playing a prank on the Expeditioners they all look up to.

After much travel and blackberries we finally made it to the promised land; the mud pit lay before us. The campers took their places in the mud and the battle began!  Mud went flying in all directions as campers hurled and threw handfuls of the mush.  In the end it was all fun to fun, but the real fun was attempting to guess what color our clothing had been before we had been slopped.  The hike was an amazing success.  In order to share our hiking experience with the rest of camp, we wore our battle stained clothing to lunch.  However, the Cabin Fairy did not approve of our dirty attire; we were sentenced to cleansing by lake water and forced to jump in the lake after lunch, much to the amusement of the campers.

This brought us to rest hour and a GRP rain storm.  My cabin, along with the rest of base camp, sat back and enjoyed the perfect soundtrack to a nap.  Most of my cabin sat and played cards while a few read to themselves for a bit of relaxation and recharge before activities.

The bell for first period activities rang and unfortunately the rain was still around.  Not to worry–our incredibly creative staff wasn’t about to let a few rain drops stop us from having fun!  I assisted a low ropes challenge course activity which focused on team building and communication to complete a series of tasks.  The most impressive thing was the campers’ ability to almost seamlessly adapt to their new roles in each activity.  As first period came to an end, we broke for snack before heading on to the next activity.  I headed down to the gazebo to assist again with Tae Kwon Do.  The campers were now under the tutelage of a third degree blackbelt, Sean.  I quickly learned how strenuous the moves were and was very impressed by the fortitude of the campers in their dedication to learning what our instructor had to offer.  For free time,  I was joined by several campers who were involved in a quest to find the legendary Ort Man action figure.  I pondered the clues with them and even helped dig a pit in hopes of success, but the prize eluded us for another day.

Dinner was the next item on the menu.  Fresh and cleaned up after free time, my cabin and I once again braved a sea of hungry campers to reach the lodge.  We had a bit of a surprise half-way through the meal; not one but two birthdays were celebrated today and the entire camp was treated to cake. Banana cake, to be exact, and my cabin went bananas for it.  Not one crumb went uneaten, but of course the same can be said for the green beans and potatoes.  Once again the Ort Report shook the lodge after we had finished our meal.  Ort Man and Scrappy, or Scrappy and Ort Man, if Scrappy has her way, joined us for another entry of ORT MYSTERY THEATRE …BUM BUM BUM!  This time President Obama presented us with another clue to help solve the case.

Once dinner had been cleaned up and put away, the evening program was all that was left.  My personal favorite: the Appalachian Shindig!  Everyone came up to the lodge completely decked out in flannel, cowboy hats, pigtails, and a few dresses.  We had a blast!  Right hand stars, circle left, alaman left, swing your partner! Sweat and smiles covered every face in the lodge, everyone dancing and laughing; it was a sight to see.  The live band was amazing, getting all the campers up and having a good time and teaching them something new and surprisingly a lot more fun than they would have suspected.

As the dance came to a close, the clouds broke again.  This time the rain was welcomed with open arms as it fell, cooling the campers as they made their way back to their bunks.  My cabin started to get in their beds and I noticed something that had been happening all day; my campers were smiling.  I couldn’t help but smile back, with a day like that behind me and another one waiting on the other side of the horizon.  People say there is no such thing as magic, but I believe this place is proof that there is.

*Many thanks to Cameron, one of our cabin counselors and our guest blogger!

Check here for some photos from Tuesday, July 27.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

7:15 The first bell has just rung.

7:30 We have to set for Breakfast! I’m singing my boys awake. I take requests; this morning it’s “Oh, what a Beautiful Morning”

7:50 We are ringing the bell ourselves this time. To urge the rest of camp out of warm beds and into a warm lodge. On chillier mornings there is a crackling fire to greet us.

8:03 We are singing our morning greeting to the sun. I’m thinking about biscuits.

8:08 My campers vaporize the breakfast formerly before us. They are 13- this happens every meal.

9:02 Breakfast wraps-up with the ORT report and the lodge erupts when we find that we are once again in Coolesville. (very little food waste) If this keeps up, Director Paul won’t get out of the session without going in the lake.

9:15 The bell rings alerting campers to meet in the east field for their hikes. My campers leave reluctantly– this will be the last mentor hike that some of them get to go on.

9:30 Buses depart and hiking groups are sprinkled throughout the preserve. I’m going from Lower Bald to Upper Bald. We stuff ourselves with the (finally!) ripe blueberries while enjoying the best view in camp.

12:45 We gather in the lodge again for lunch and these kids have earned it! It’s chicken sandwiches. One of my campers actually jumped with joy.

1:55 Lunch is concluding and the cleanest cabins are announced. Hemlock Hut 2 and Spirit Winds 1 took the prize today, but my boys are hungry for it (that, and more chicken).

2:36 We are nap deep into rest hour and although the entirety of Fireside 1 pleaded to play cards because they were “Anything but tired” — they are all asleep; two passed out with letters from home still in their hands.

3:02 All tiredness is erased as the camp springs to life and out the door. Activities 7 and 8 are to be completed today. I’m teaching Creative Writing and then Painting. My Writing students never fail to be hilarious. Stories with monkeys bounce around the table as we share our free writing. The painters have a much calmer demeanour. The Craft Lodge is silent as they paint– drawing from National Geographic’s or what’s just off the porch.

4:58 I clean up paint as the campers anxiously await free time.

5:00 The bell rings and they fly out of the Craft Lodge like birds from a cage; off to the zipline, I’m guessing, but I’ll see them there too.

5:07 I have the zipline set up and the afternoon’s first customer is ready to go whizzing across the lake. She wants me to scream “Trailing Cedars Rocks!” to her when she needs to drop. I oblige.

6:15 It’s Cabin Time– our little “brush-up” period before dinner. The boys finally got the card game they were after and all 7 sit on the floor in a circle.  I remind them it is pirate night and the game is forgotten. They all begin painting on tattoos and long caterpillar-like scars. After 3 years of being on staff, I can draw a perfect skull and crossbones.

6:35 My cabin is forming a perfect line in front of the lodge as we teach pirate lingo. The lesson isn’t long– as grunting is pretty easy. We eat dinner to dimmed lights and the “Pirates of the Caribbean” soundtrack playing in the background. The staff have mock sword fights. It’s dinner theater, really.

7:37 The most dramatic move of the meal occurs as Pirate Night shifts into Staff Hunt. A whistle blows and previously selected staff members (now, wanted pirate criminals) tear out of the lodge to hide themselves around the preserve. Once the campers are released they search with their cabin group to find a few members of the surly bunch.

8:28 My cabin finds someone and we correctly guess their name. (Staff members hide with their faces concealed.) My boys are thrilled because this means we get to push him in the lake.

8:29 Another GRP staff member is now soaking wet. “Justice!”, my campers cry.

9:05 Shower time. To many a camper’s dismay, they have to shower every day of the session.

9:37 The newly straightened cabin smells like soap. We all sit in a circle talking about our day. We each share a rose (the highlight), thorn (something we wish had gone differently) and our bud (the biggest expectation for tomorrow). Once again- there were no thorns.

10:34 I read to my guys each night and finally wrap up the last chapter– all I hear from them are snores and to me that sounds like a pretty good idea. I roll into bed, ready to do it all again at the sound of the next bell.

-Joe Wadlington

*Many thanks to Joe for being our guest blogger–you can find pictures from July 8 here!

Hello friends and family!

My name is Lizzie Smith and I’m going to be the guest contributor for today’s blog post. I’m a counselor for Trailing Cedars 2. I’ve been on staff for the past four years and love everything about camp.

Our day started out wonderfully with biscuits at breakfast (which might be one of the foods our cooks make the best and are my personal favorite) and laundry being sent out. After that, the campers met with their mentors for information on what to bring on their second-to-last mentor hike. It always amazes me that camp goes by so fast and that the campers are about to go home! My girls had a great morning and went everywhere – from Fawn Lake in Dupont State Forest to Joe’s Pool here on the GRP property. While the campers were off exploring the woods, staff members who weren’t on hikes were busy preparing for the upcoming Group Learning Projects (GLP’s). GLP’s give campers the opportunity to sign up for all-day activities that range from reverent Native American ceremonies to a day of frisbee. Myself and fellow staff members were preparing a bus this morning for our “paint a bus” GLP. Our goal is to have campers paint the bus with a design based on The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, but before we can do that we had to paint two layers of base coat for the kids to paint on. Needless to say, we all ended up covered in paint, but I can’t wait to see what our end product looks like!

The afternoon continued with rest hour, activities, and free time. The campers started their last two activities today and though we saw a thunderstorm and some heavy rain during the second activity period, the activities continued indoors. For example, the climbing activity moved to the lodge where they climbed the chimney instead of the climbing wall and had a great time in spite of the storm.

Our evening program tonight was the variety show. The variety show is the GRP version of a “talent show” where the campers can sign up for acts to preform in front of the Green River community. We have an incredibly talented group of campers here. The acts included yo-yo tricks, solving a rubix cube in 1 minute 39 seconds, lip syncing, and dancing. My fellow counselor Shayna and I felt like proud mothers when one of our campers faced her fears by playing her guitar and singing in front of all of camp. It’s always wonderful to see such a vibrant and creative group of young people together in one place. After the variety show finished, it was time for bed to rest up for tomorrow. Tomorrow is also the campers’ last day of mentor hikes and activities before our GLP’s on Thursdays.  All the campers are anxious to get their last free time jump off the zip line in and they are looking forward to their GLP’s. Now it’s time for me to get some rest as well. I hope you all at home enjoyed this update and I look forward to seeing some of you again on closing day!  Check out some of the great photos from today!