I’ll have to admit, I was eyeing the radar screen surreptitiously on the old iphone, hoping those bright greens and reds would move right into our path right before dinner. What I wasn’t expecting was the loud BOOM that started the squeals and screams from all corners! A good old-fashioned summer thunderstorm. In the mountains, you can smell it coming, pushing the fragrant smells of hemlocks and rhododendrons out before it. We need the rain…we’ve been watering like crazy to make sure all of the new landscaping has a fighting chance of making it through their first hot summer. Tonight’s storm, like most, didn’t last very long, but it dropped about a half inch in twenty minutes, enough right before evening program to make us go to plan B…which is always hovering right close to plan A, especially when it is a full-on outdoor activity like Capture the Flag.
Capture the Flag demands almost perfect conditions…it’s just that popular. So, as rain continued to fall through dinner, we made a decision at the highest levels to go to plan B…movie night. After last night’s late night getting back from the Dance, it was met with a lot of enthusiasm, especially after we explained that Capture the Flag would be re-scheduled. Heigh-Ho and Hillbrook watched Happy Feet in McLeod and Pineview watched Gulliver’s Travels in the basement of Curtis.
Today was another beautiful mountain day up until the storm blew through right before dinner…and it was beautiful too! We started our leadership team meeting this morning with each person telling what they think is really going well with camp. We hit on all the big ones…amazing staff, great CITS and JCs, really great campers, Trips going well, activities, the food…the energy level is unlike any session we have seen in recent years…and they all are pretty high. So, we’re off to a great start!
Tomorrow will be a little different in its pace. We will sleep a little later, and then head over to enjoy Krispy Kremes, fruit and cereal. After breakfast, linens will be exchanged, and the girls will dress in their whites for Chapel. We’ll snap individual camp portraits, do some video shout-outs, and then worship in the Woodland Chapel before our traditional Sunday lunch…fried chicken, wild rice, steamed broccoli, and baskets full of warm yeast rolls and honey. Hand-scooped ice cream will fill in the cracks.
The Illahee Olympics will be on the program for tomorrow afternoon, followed by a cookout and campfire. It’s a different pace, but certainly not a slower one. I’m going to head back and get my beauty rest.