First Full Day of E
Dear Parents, Family, and Friends,
Today was the first full day of E session and what a day it has been! We started the day with a delicious breakfast of bagels, scrambled eggs, cheese, fresh fruit, and cereal. With such a filling breakfast, main camp campers were ready to head back to their cabins to find out which discoveries they got. With a few scattered sun showers to cool off activities, the morning was filled with the laughter of children, smell of campfire smoke from the Mill, and all the campers running around during their activities.
We also had our Mountainsiders and Riversiders head out for their various adventures. Our Riversiders went to hike the Art Loeb Trail through Pisgah National Forest and will be picked up on Thursday. Meanwhile the MS paddlers are going to paddle the Green River, earth skills went to a location we call Wolf Den near Dupont State Forest, climbers headed out to Linville Gorge, bikers went to Dupont, and backpackers headed to the Mountains to Sea trail in Pisgah. For our Mountainsiders, this adventure gives the campers the opportunity to grow and challenge themselves in the activity they chose earlier in MS3.
With a morning full of activities, lunch was a delicious and much needed meal of baked potato bar with chili, broccoli, and apples, along with other smaller toppings. Campers also learned what tables they were assigned to, as these tables will be where they will eat for the rest of the meals while they are at camp. These tables are a mix of campers across various age ranges, cabin counselors, program staff, and leadership. By having tables which are a mix of people, we find campers are able to meet and understand people who they might otherwise not have the opportunity or chance to speak to.
Campers were eager to get to shuck corn after lunch. While we may have the occasional camper who doesn’t like the idea of shucking corn, the majority all find the task as one of their most memorable experiences while at camp, though it does help that we can shuck around 1,000 ears of corn in a week.
In the afternoon, campers were able to choose two activities they wanted to do. These activities range from horseback riding, zipline, going to the farm, camping skills or nature, cooking at the mill, making pottery whales, climbing the tower, making a nametag at blacksmithing, and so many more. While our Thorguard Lightning detector went off once during the first hour of these activities for around 10 minutes, campers were still able to partake in their activities with minimal impact to the remainder of their afternoon sign-ups.
Dinner seemed like a rather empty affair as we had 14 tables closed due to several cabins that were cooking and camping out and Mountainside, and Riverside who are on their adventures. Following dinner, campers choose what they wanted to do for After Supper Activities. Some of the more popular activities were parachute games on The Green, Tajar Spotting, and friendship bracelets. It was so exciting seeing campers run around and ask staff to prove they weren’t the Tajar by performing their best death defying leap.
In place of campfire this evening, Hillsiders headed into the Lodge for Mountain Dancing, while our Brooksiders played a game called “Tajar Mission / Secret Agent”. This game involved taking messages from one country, being represented by a program leader, to another country, all while avoiding the chaos agents who want to plunge the world into…well chaos. This was such a fun game and good way for our Brooksiders to see and play up in the Mountainside cove.
