July 7th – New Activities and First Overnight Trips

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It’s been a busy first week here at camp, but the community seems just as energetic as ever as we begin our second round of interest groups. To keep that energy up, we even had a morning of rest, sleeping in later than usual and heading straight to our morning flag raising. There some of our youngest campers from LBC village had prepared a wonderful flag raising for us where they talked about areas of their life they want to grow in. Some girls talked about abstract ideas like teamwork and being open with their feelings; one camper even talked about how she wants to get over her fear of spiders.

After that we headed over to the eating lodge for a wonderful breakfast of pancakes and sausages. I had a chance to have a wonderful breakfast with Mahoosuc village where we discussed what type of wizard everyone would be. We had ice wizards, flying wizards, and even a wizard who could turn into animals! Once breakfast was over, the Pioneers and Trailblazer women headed back to their cabins to clean, while the Trailblazer men began loading up for their hiking trips. Clothes, sleeping bags, food and tents were all packed up for the 2 night trip, and eventually the two villages headed out, with the plan for one to hike out of camp and drive back, for the other to do the reverse, so they will pass each other on trail in the middle of their trip.

While this was happening, the second round of interest groups began to kick off! Campers spread out to make bird houses in woodworking, to shoot bullseyes at the archery range, and go paddle boarding out on Dan Hole Pond. I stopped by the eating lodge to grab an apple at one point, only to discover campers in the bike shop learning about bike maintenance! Even I can’t keep track of all the activities we offer.

From there it was back to lunch, where we had chicken patties for lunch. Campers also found a surprise on their tables: survey sheets for tomorrow night’s activity, “Founderly Feud.” Campers filled out the survey and handed them back to us, and we tallied the results. Tomorrow, the campers will try to guess what the most popular answers were for questions like: Who will be the next Kris Light, or What do counselors talk about at the staff table. For one question, “The leader most likely to join the circus after they leave Merrowvista is…” a camper answered “Merrowvista is a circus.” Sounds about right!

Once lunch was done, campers headed back to their villages for easy time, to rest some more before taking on the second half of the day! After that, Pioneers continued with interest groups before Trailblazer women headed down to Dan Hole Pond for their canoe shakedown! There they learned how to paddle, safety information, and how to rescue capsized boats; information definitely worth knowing before they head out on their overnight canoe trip tomorrow.

After campers had their afternoon free time and dinner was over, we prepared for the end of the day, Night’s Doings; tonight’s game: the ever popular Camper Leader Hunt! They worked with their villages to find camp staff who had hidden all around camp. Groups have to know staff members’ names in order to get credit for finding them, and different staff members are worth different points. The campers did a great job searching, and the staff turned out to be surprisingly good at hiding! The game is over but some of them still haven’t been found. Maybe they’re too good at hiding? Just kidding, everyone is back safe and sound.

Finally, to close out the day we all headed to the chapel for Evening Reflection lead by Lafayette village. And as we head into tomorrow, we know there will be more excitement; even more trips leaving, even more skills to be learned, and even more friendships to make. We’ll keep you updated on the wonderful journey that is summer life in the Canaan Valley.