Hazy Lazy Days at Camp

Camp Horse Pasture in the Early Evening

With three teenagers, there isn't a direct route to any place or any thing. 

We started our trip with a detour through western North Carolina to pick up the son who had made the treacherous bus journey there the week before.  He had gone off for the required five days of camp counselor orientation and then, thanks to a lot of juggling on our part and the camp's, was to join us for a week in Florida before actually beginning his job.  (Because we have four different school schedules going in our house -- two different colleges, one child in high school, and one mom teaching in a religious high school that bows to the Jewish but not the secular calendar, last week was literally the only one between last January 1 and next December 25 that we could legitimately call a joint family vacation week .)

We ended the trip with a second North Carolina detour, to return said child and his younger sister to the camp where she, too, will be working, but as a staff-in-training (no orientation required).

And why don't I mind all this?  The truth is, I love it!  My children work at this camp, and went to this camp, because I went there the summers that I turned 10 and 11.  It was a different world then, in which campers typically went off for sessions of four or eight weeks, weeks which I embraced with every fiber of my being.

This particular camp is utterly noncompetitive and nurturing, designed around the needs of younger children to play outdoors, soak up nature, and swim and paddle and sing and dance.  I felt strong and independent and resourceful there.  In reality, I was a little girl with a shattered family and the klutziest limbs on the planet, but at camp I was also a girl who could camp along a wild stream, canoe across a lake, and make other people laugh with my dramatic rendition of Pinocchio's father.

So I don't mind going back at all, no matter how tedious the drive.  I can hardly believe that 40 years later, a place like this still shelters children for a few days or weeks each summer.