I walked out of my house at 6:45 this morning, and the thermometer read 57 degrees! These are my kind of days. Chilly enough at breakfast to warrant a sweatshirt, breezy enough to keep your hair unkempt, and warm enough by midday to jump in the swim lake.
Today we celebrated Christmas in July! Counselors awoke early to decorate the dining hall, and Gardner dressed up as Santa before lunch for campers to take a picture with and make their Christmas wish. We sang carols at Rise and Shine, and dessert for dinner was homemade gingerbread cookies, with the option to decorate them yourself.
Gordon and Laurie took the 7th graders from Juniper out on the 7th Grade Hike. They drove up to the parkway, hiked up and over Black Balsam and Tennent Mountain, and finished off the day with a swim at Whale’s Back swimming hole. They even ran into some girls from Heigh Ho who were at the same swimming hole on a signup hike. Our last group of 7th graders will head out tomorrow, and fingers crossed they get the same spectacular weather!
I spent some time playing pickleball today with counselor Addy and her 2nd period class of girlies. Touch the Fence was the game, and for a brief time I remembered just why pickleball is such a popular activity: It’s so dang fun! From 2nd to 8th grade, this class played hard. From there, I walked to climbing and saw three different girls nearly reaching the top of the beanstalk at the same time. The girls were pumped and proud of themselves for their accomplishments (as they should be).
The swim lake was popular during choice period. Dozens and dozens of campers, matched in buddies, were playing on tubes, flying off the Tarzan, and streaking down the Streak. It is and always will be one of the happiest places in the world on a warm summer’s day.
For the evening program tonight, I took the Pineview girls to Sliding Rock and Dolly’s ice cream, while Heigh Ho and Hillbrook stayed back and had a Christmas-themed “Dec the Counselor.” Cabins decorated their counselors as various Christmas characters to compete in a silly pageant-like competition. It was a close match between “Fruit Cake” (played by Kate), “Elf on a Shelf” (played by Tizzy), and “Gingy the Gingerbread Man (played by Haddy), but in the end “The Grandma that got run over by a reindeer” won, played by Daisy! Fun was had by all, and campers are already sleeping soundly as I type away.
There was a holy moment tonight at Sliding Rock. For the first bit, while I stood watch on the rock, whistle and Lifeguard hip pack ready, Gardner was on the other side taking photos. Like all of our amazing photographers at camp (shoutout Gretchen, Molly, Grace C, Grace G, and Lynn), Gardner was capturing beautiful moments so that you can get a glimpse of the joy your daughter is experiencing. As girls slid down over and over again, she snapped a photo for the scrapbook, for you to share with friends and family, and for her (your daughter) to look at one day with fondness as she recalls her days spent at Illahee.
The best part of the evening, however, was when Gardner left (That sentence could get me in trouble if taken out of context). When she left her post, the girls who were giving up the heart hands, scuba faces, and perfect smiles had nowhere to look. As they slid down this ancient rock, doing something so unique with some of their best friends, they didn’t have to perform. They glanced at where Gardner once stood, and realizing she had left, turned back to enjoy the moment rather than posing for it. For a brief time, they were kids of the 1990’s, free from the constant attention of a camera or phone lens.
I say this because pictures help tell the story of camp. They are powerful, beautiful, and can give a dash of comfort to a mom missing her daughter. And yet, they only tell a small piece of the story.
They didn’t capture the moment when two girls from PVL went up to the Dolly’s window after everyone had ordered and said “thank you” to the workers who had scooped all of our ice cream. They didn’t capture the van ride where a group of 8th grade girls joyfully sang “The Cider Song” all the way home from Sliding Rock. Photos didn’t capture the counselors who woke up before the sun to decorate the dining hall so that a campers day could be made a little more special, the way a counselor in pickleball knew every single girl’s name on the first day, the feeling of accomplishment when a dripping wet camper walked into the office to announce she had passed out of swimming, or the way our kitchen staff went above and beyond providing homemade gingerbread cookies for dessert.
There are thousands of moments every day that make camp, camp. I’m grateful for the ones we capture and even more grateful for the ones we don’t. All the moments lead to a better version of your daughter and a more joyful experience at Illahee.
So if you don’t see your daughter in a photo, know that she’s probably too busy experiencing camp to slow down and pose.
Lucas