First Day Of Camp

Hello future readers,

Well, after an hour of bumping along the mountain roads, the bus pulled up to the camp. My heart started thumping when I saw the camp sign...we finally made it!

As we unloaded our stuff off the bus, I could see my friend Crissy's younger cousin Velvet, and her older cousin Kerry waving us over. Kerry was Velvet's older sister. She was 16-years-old, and I guess she was going to be our camp counselor. She's really pretty. My mom says she looks like that 60s model, Twiggy, but with longer hair. It was Velvet's first time at camp, and she was kinda scared. Kerry said us she'd be hanging out with us for awhile before she went back to the younger campers.

Kerry told us to put our stuff by the camp sign. She welcomed all of us, then she gave a speech about how she always loved camp when she was a kid (wow, I guess everybody did!), and she was really excited to be our counselor. She told us that she would give us our cabin assignments after lunch and told us to follow her to the dining hall.

As we were walking to the dining hall, I saw a girl walking in front of me I had never seen before. I knew all the other girls, because they all lived in Springfield, but this was someone new.

The dining hall was a lot like my school's lunchroom, only cabin style. The cook told each of us to grab a plate and line up. Then she gave us each a taco and a cup of Kool-Aid. Hey now...tacos?! Outta site! Maybe the food here wasn't gonna be so bad after all. I saw the new girl sit at a table in the back corner, so Robyn and I joined her.

She told us her name was Cheryl, and she was from San Clemente. Hey, like where Richard Nixon lives! Cheryl was kinda scared because she didn't know anybody. I told her not to worry, and that all the kids were really nice. Then Kerry stood up and started explaining the rules.

 Our section of camp was divided into 3 cabins; The Red Robins, The Yellow Canaries, and the Blue Jays. We were all getting bandannas to match with the color of our cabin assignments. We didn't have to wear them all the time, only on hikes, during field games and at campfire time in the evening. No one was to go near the lake without a counselor. We had to have a rest period in our cabins for 1 hour everyday. Everyone had to carry a flashlight when going to the bathrooms at night, and we couldn't take anything out of the recreation hall except books, and we had to sign those out. Then at last we got our cabin assignments. I was in the Red Robins along with Sunny and the new girl Cheryl. Far out! I wanted to get to know her better anyway, and help her not feel so scared. We gathered our gear and Kerry led us to our cabin. I thought it was pretty cool.

There were 3 cots called bunks with no mattresses, (but that's what our sleeping bags were for). On each bunk was a camp t-shirt and a red bandanna. There were also 3 cubbies for us to put things in.  Kerry took Velvet back to the younger campers, and left us to get settled.

We each chose a bunk and a cubby. None of us felt like unpacking right away. But we did roll out our sleeping bags on our bunks and sat around rapping for about half an hour.

Kerry came back to give us a tour of the camp. It was a pretty cool place. The recreation hall, the dining hall, the lake, the hiking trail, and most important, the bathrooms! I hadn't even noticed that there wasn't a bathroom in the cabin...we had to walk down the trail behind our cabin to get to them!

Wow, it's been a pretty busy day, future readers! I'll be writing about the activities we do in camp, but for now, I'm gonna check out the rec hall. Bye for now!

Until next time,
Your friend,
Julie Newman