Time to go!

Well shoot, it's the last morning of our time here at Blue Ridge and I haven't blogged pretty much at all. So instead I have asked Joey to recount his last morning here in the Manor House, as we loiter around until we have to drive to Atlanta.
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Joey's log:
I woke up and thought that it was time for work, but then realized we were leaving today. Looked out of the window and saw Lara packing up-- she left an hour before she said she was going to. Intentionally left soap and shampoo and loofah in the shower-- did not want to bring them with. I have really bad farts from drinking beer. When I walked out of me room people were awake and doing things. We listened to Andy Dwyer sing Pit and Sebastian 5 times each. Put on a pair of pants and a new shirt. Moisturized my face because it was dry from shaving. Put in contacts. Thought I was gonna wear glasses but decided to go with contacts. Successfully packed Annie's car with room to spare. Which is a good thing because that body that we have to bring is taking up a lot of room. I farted a lot. Looked at the poster we made and it occurred to me that our poster is very much like my parents refrigerator. Littered with pictures of Lara. If we were to take off all the pictures of Lara on the poster it would be pretty bare. Walked around for a  little bit, packed my carry-on bag. Took a really gross poop and left it in the toilet. Then after leaving it in the toilet for a bit, I went to flush it because it might become a free-living organism if left too long and take over the house. Said bye to Sarah, she left. I will not see her for a while; Annie will see her tonight. Made a new outgoing phone message. Not a big surprise that it talked about farts. 706-282-1423.
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We're still not leaving yet, got some time to kill, so we're busy stinking up the house and writing weird notes to leave in places. Proudest part of my morning: packing my car so that most everything I own can just fit in the trunk! This is a huge achievement for my pack rat road trip way of life. And once I kick Joey out at the airport, I'll have space for not one but TWO people to fit in the car. Progress.

A coupla hours in the life

Just for kicks and because I happened to jot it down, here is a list of some of the things that are possible to talk about during one hike to the waterfall with a group of 5th graders.

Coconut bras
Mamacitas
Divorce
Mushrooms that can kill you
A mushroom named Yoshi
Good names for mushrooms
Cars
Snails
Woodpeckers
Spider webs
How there are many rocks in the trail
How there are sticks in the trail
Lichen and how much we lichen stuff
Why a silent walk can be nice

Every class is a whirlwind, every day is exhausting, and the weeks are flying by. Weird to think that I only have another month here-- I feel like I just moved in! Perhaps I'll post about what I actually do here before I leave, but no promises.

Here's a pic of the waterfall in all it's glory:

MLIC (My Life Is Camp)

The end-o-summer transition away from camp is never easy. Sure, there's always bird count and there's always small camp reunions throughout the year, but nothing can compare to a magical summer at Cooper's Cove. However, this summer marks a new transition: leaving camp for good (wow, writing that was really hard). For the past two years, and I could go so far as to say the past eight years, my life has been camp. My summers there are a huge part of my identity. I shape my experiences during the entire year around camp. If I pick up a new skill or learn a new fact, I always think about how I can apply it to working at The Cove. I tell camp stories to anyone who will listen, and I tell them even if they won't listen, oops. I look through old boxes of memorabilia and read through old journals and look at pictures and reminisce about all the hilarious things that happened in the collective memory of camp. And then February comes around and I get to work on (or craft) the camp application and fully let myself get excited for another summer, because Spring is right around the corner and camp comes after that.  Camp camp camp, how many times can I write 'camp'?

And now, suddenly, my time working at the best place/job in the world has come to an end. I'm 24, and finally ready to acknowledge that I want to gain other experiences during the summer. I've started a new job in the environmental education field, and it's exciting.

And yet all I want to do I be able to return to camp. I want to take all of the activities and tricks that I've learned in training here in Georgia and apply them to my morning workshops at camp. I want to go back to the comforting schedule of Reflections before dinner every day, and an Inspection Report at lunch, the Bird List at dinner, and Ashokan Farewell at the end of Folklore Night. I want my hair to smell like pond, and I want to be able to recognize by sight which logs will definitely house a salamander (I can't do that log thing at this new place and it's driving me crazy).

Maybe those things are the exact reason that I shouldn't go back. I need to push my comfort zone, I need to grow more, I need to leave what I know to try what I'm wondering about. I grew up and became myself at The Cove, and I learned more than I could ever fully articulate in this blog post. I've learned enough to fend for myself elsewhere, I hope. It breaks my heart to not go back in the same capacity, and the last few weeks have been rough because of that feeling of loss/ of feeling lost. I think that as the season here gets busy and the end of summer gets farther away and hopefully new opportunities loom, I will have an easier time of it. But for now, bear with me on my continuing trip down memory lane.

Speaking of, here's a picture that Vini sent me today of young camper Annie, catchin' bugs. #tbt

things we googled...

...during awards painting! I kept a list during third session of every image us painters looked up to help draw and watercolor each unique camper award. As always, it was a funny combination of words:

roll of film
groundhog
tomato plant
sandstone photographs
spaceman helmet
spaceman cartoons
avengers
papageno
ant
allegheny mountain ant
human heart
honeycomb
bee
wolf spider
pole vaulter
shark fin
cattail
person in inner tube
bunk bed
jam jar
spider cartoons
upright spider
ant
grapevine
canon ae1
someone taking a picture with a camera
cartoon frog
cartoon hand from above
wisdom
shop window
mannequin
foot mannequin

This is my most proud award of all time ever, maybe. It's called 'Amanita Draw This,' depicting a deadly Amanita drawing a self portrait. Things I probably googled for this: Amanita. Easel.
Other notable things about this award: It was a trifecta! Meaning I named it, painted it, and presented it. The Dream.

2nd Session Highlights

Sometimes my schedule lends itself to frequent blog posts, and sometimes I barely have time to get all my postcard writing checked off. Which is more important? Postcards, duh. But I have been unable to share about each camp session fully in just a short postcard, so the time has come to bloggy.

I'll share a few pictures/ highlights from 2nd session, which ended about a week two weeks ago:

Perhaps even winning the honor of Best Nerdy Nature Camp Moment of the Summer, this was certainly a session highlight. To set the scene: It was the end of morning project time, and the table setters bell was about to ring. Suddenly a Barred Owl flew up the stream and landed in a tree, and few people saw and called out. They got the attention of everyone around the lodge, and one by one the entire camp gathered near the stream with binoculars and cameras and quietly stood admiring the owl. The bell rang (lunch for the day was Pizza Bagels, an alltime crowd pleaser) and no one moved. We all just stood and watched the owl. Many teachable moments were had-- nature nerd camp in action!

Another great event of 2nd session: Monongahela! Everyone at 2nd session goes backpacking here for 2 nights and 3 days, but in small groups. My group was named BEAKN'JAMMS, and then we all yelled THUNDER COUGAR FALCONS after our countoff because obviously that's what BEAKN'JAMMS spells! Our theme: Classic South North Blueberry Traverse aka we did it all! Great views, great poos, blueberries, relaxing on epic rocks, all the mud, all the farts, and rock club. I discovered that my new favorite trail in the Dolly Sods Wilderness is the Raven Ridge Trail. The mud is plentiful but the views and field-y spruce-y bits are spectacular. And we found a digging turtle.

Best turtle of second session: Mushroom Turtle (although digging turtle was a close second). We found Mushroom Turtle during project time. We were out by the stream searching for sweet mushrooms to paint, but instead we found this guy with mushrooms ALL over his face. Tell me, is there anything cuter? Nope.

Girls night with Cory 2k15!!! Ok I guess this was after 2nd session but it involved nail polish, sweet tunes, drawing, candles, and table dance parties while everyone else was off watching some movie. Our night was way better.

Getting heat exhaustion while doing the end of session burger cookout. Well I guess it's not a quite a highlight, but it's still something that happened. My advice to you: Don't stand over a really really hot fire for hours on a heat index day and then hike up to the Bald to do final ceremony and awards. It's terrible. Disclaimer: This picture is from the 3rd session cookout where there was zero heat exhaustion involved and I actually had to put on a sweater to serve burgers because it was so cool out.

Now third session is over-- it really took me almost 10 days to write this one blog post.  mark of how busy this summer has been! Maybe I'll post something again maybe.

on the daily

In the Death Valley dorms, a group of people would participate in an ongoing monthly fitness challenge, like abs in January and squats in February. I did a couple sessions, but mostly my excuse for not doing a daily fitness regime was that I hiked miles in the desert every day for work and all I wanted to do was sit around and not exert energy.

But now the days of hiking while carrying 50 lbs of metal are gone, so it’s time to enact a fitness challenge of my own. I have decided to do a headstand every day, to keep the doctor away. Every day this summer (starting today, Day 1 of Staff Week) I will do a headstand in a scenic location for one whole minute. I can move my legs around but they can’t touch the ground, and that’s the only rule.

Maybe it won’t be as effective as an ab workout, but I think I’ll enjoy the view more. And do a lot more tick checks on my head.

mail mail mail

This winter I got to have my very own P.O. box, which was exciting for me, mail nerd that I am. I'm currently back at my favorite address (sans P.O. box) but I'm really getting a kick out of the P.O. boxes that I get to send postcards to.
Here's a list of some fun towns that I've sent mail to in the past week:

Death Valley, CA
Bishop, CA
Moose, WY
Ely, MN
King Salmon, AK
Grand Canyon, AZ
New Orleans, LA
Northfield, MN
St. Paul, MN

Friends, you are in some cool spots! I'm excited to pen-pal it up to all these far-flung places.