Good Food and More!
Dear Parents & Friends,
Another great day here at GV! We had some rain this afternoon and spent some time indoors playing games and watching the buckets of rain fall. Indoor Thunderball works just as well as outdoor Thunderball. It was a very cool morning but by 10:30 the temps began to rise and so did the activity level. Tonight’s dinner and lunch was delicious. At lunch we had pitas with sautéed chicken and tzatziki sauce and tabouli, with all kinds of trimmings and tonight for dinner was Sloppy Joe’s with sweet potato french fries, salad from the garden, snow peas and broccoli from our garden. The kids loved it and so did the adults. Mealtimes are great at camp because we really do sit at the table and converse. Everyone at our table chips in and campers at the table do their share as well. Campers learn a lot about managing a table of 10 people where cooperation is key. There’s lot of please and thank you’s and in a room with 350 people one needs to keep things orderly and tidy as best we can. There’s hardly a meal goes by that someone doesn’t turn over a drink or drop their silverware on the floor. And that’s an “all for one” moment when everyone tosses their napkin into the spilled liquid and the spiller retrieves a towel or more napkins. No one fusses or cries over spilt milk, we just clean it up, continue our conversation and keep eating.
I was able to get out into program today to visit with climbers, pottery, bikers, and headed down to the farm this afternoon to watch the feeding of all those baby calves. After getting to the farm our ThorGuard Weather station went off and lots of rain ensued. Our lightening detector lets us know when we have an approaching storm. It measures the lightening factor about 12 miles out and we get a long 15 second horn blast that lets everyone know to get to a safe shelter. This technology has saved a lot of time and has taken away the human error of us trying to monitor the weather channel and other sources (which is delayed up to 10 minutes). When the storm has passed through, the horns sound a different tone to provide the all clear signal.
Tomorrow we start our Open House sessions when a couple of members of the Leadership team visits cabins to meet with campers without the counselors being there. It’s a way to make sure that staff are doing their job and taking good care of the children. I am invited to go to Running River and Walnut Run tomorrow. Open House is such a good way to get a read on the health of the cabin and how their camp experience is going.
On to a different part of camp, Mountainside chose their activities today and the campers found out which adventure they will be on. Thursday is their big departure day. Paddlers will head out to several local rivers, climbers to Pisgah National Forest and most likely Looking Glass Rock, Bikers to Dupont State Forest and Pioneers to the top of Parkway for several days at over 5800 feet near Shining Rock.
There’s never a dull moment at camp. Main camp had their first Mountain Dancing campfire and we did the Hokey Pokey, Going to Kentucky, Sasha (Russian Folk Dance) and read several Tajar stories. The other big story for tonight was that about half the camp cooked out tonight and were scattered at various cookout shelters preparing and eating dinner. A fire and food tastes very good after a wet afternoon. I know of one particular creek hiking group that was especially hungry when they got caught in the rain today. They burned lots of calories and came back to camp ready for warmth and good food. They received both! I met them not far on the trail to camp with some fleece and dry towels for the last part of the journey. We hope the weather will be better tomorrow and please join us for more peeks into life at GV. Stay tuned!