random camping... part one...

VOLUNTEERING?  REALLY??
so, yeah, i've never been much in the department of volunteering at the kids' school, but for some reason, i got it into my head to sign up for all these damn things this year... one of these damn things was to be a parent chaperone at my daughter's school's camp...  she goes to this weird artsy high school, and their first official three days of school take place at a summer camp... now, those of you that know me, know i am really not the outdoorsy type... especially when the outdoorsiness involves sleeping outdoors (this includes tents, for those of you who might be inclined to argue that point...)  i want a real bed to sleep in, with some indoor plumbing and such so that my shower does not have to take place in either one of those icky campground community bathrooms... or a freezing cold lake...  nonetheless, i found myself hitting 'send' on an email that said "heck yes!  sign me up!!"  that's when the dread set in.  what had i done?  and why had i done it??

not to worry, my daughter said (even though she was all like "who are you? and what have you done with my mother??' when i told her i volunteered) "they set up all the girls in the nice cabins, with in-room bathrooms... and they put the boys in the tee-pees and wagons, which suck..."  ok, cool, i can probably handle that... and out the door i head to the mandatory parent volunteer training and orientation...

VOLUNTEER ORIENTATION

One of the wagons.. in fact, THE wagon, darbey had to sleep in...

this is what i heard... blah blah blah "kids..."  blah blah blah "mealtimes..."  blah blah blah "bus ride..."  blah blah blah "and this year we've decided to switch things up and put the boys in the nice cabins and the girls in the tee-pees and wagons... doesn't that sound like fun?!?"  ummm, NOOOO!!!  what the h-e-double-hockeysticks had i gotten myself into this time?  and darbey (who got her outdoorsy camping gene directly from me) was also not going to be thrilled by this exciting news... and then i heard... blah blah blah "if you're on night patrol, we put you up in this nice HOUSE!"  now we're talkin'!  ok... crossing off cabin and signing up for night patrol!  might as well save one of us :)

CAMP - DAY ONE
day one was cuhhhrazzzyyyy... beginning with the whole check-in process... a bunch of us parents lined up on one side of this long table, with our lists in hand... and throngs of students piled up on the other side (sort of) patiently waiting their turn to check-in... what was scheduled to be a 40 minute process took almost two hours... i have a few suggestions for next year, but as i was told, if it was organized, it wouldn't be SOTA (School of the Arts)... well, alright then.

so, check-in complete, time for our next task... loading the buses... i was assigned to bus 3 with this other mom, and my first job was to hold up the piece of paper that said "BUS THREE" for... ever... she was taking charge of checking kids' names before they got on the bus... once all our kids were present and accounted for, it was clear there were no seats left for one, let alone both, of us parents... lucky me, she was super-quick and got the hell outta dodge, so there i was, cramming into a bus bench made for two, with darbey and her friend derek... well, to be fair, only my left butt cheek was crammed onto the seat.. with the right side left to fend for itself in the aisleway...

in case you were wondering, riding this way on a school bus is EXTREMELY uncomfortable... and we had about a 45-minute ride ahead of us... or so we thought...

two-plus hours, and MANY wrong turns and turn-arounds later, we (officially dubbed "THE LOST BUS") finally arrived at camp... starving... just in time for lunch to be over... awesome.

black lake...

now, most of the parent volunteers had to find their first instructional block, but i thought i'd go scout out my house and pick my room... S-C-O-R-E!  i got the master bedroom, the only room in the house with it's own bathroom... and a lovely view of the lake out the window... things were beginning to look up!

the next stop was the parent meeting... where my night patrol shift was assigned... 3am-5am... yep, i was gonna have to walk around that dark campground in the middle of the night... suddenly visions of jason, his hockey mask, and his machete were flashing through my brain... and i couldn't remember if he ever died!  wagons and tee-pees were sounding much better now... but that wasn't happening, so i went back to my room, unpacked and settled in for a nap before the evening activities...

SHOWCASE - NIGHT ONE
can i just say, OMG!!  ok, backing up a few steps... what is showcase, you ask??  well, i think i may have mentioned before that this is an ARTS high school, and showcase is designed to, well, showcase, the students' performing arts of choice... this right here made the whole camp experience worth all of the aforementioned hassles... ok, so back to OMG!!  there's some seriously great talent at that school, and such a variety... there were singer/songwriters (wrote their own songs, sang them, and accompanied themselves on guitar or keyboard); hip-hop dancing (darbey got up on stage for this one!); classical violin solo; a sax performance (in the style of dave koz); and much more...

and topping off showcase night one, was one of SOTA's main rock bands, Rooftop Warrior... they played three songs amidst somewhere in the neighborhood of 427 warnings against mosh pits and crowd surfing... they were pretty awesome... check 'em out here... http://www.reverbnation.com/rooftopwarrior

Rooftop Warrior

and that was day one... now off to my room to nap a bit before my 3am night patrol shift....

buzz buzz... buzz buzz... what the??  who's texting me at midnight??  oh, that would be the co-director of the school calling all the night patrol parents over to the staff lounge for a quick meeting... so, off i go, trodding through the woods in my p-jams and baseball hat... super annoyed... until i got there and they told me they won't be needing a 3am-5am patrol and i can just go on back to sleep for the rest of the night!  (insert happy happy joy joy dance here) oh, i think i can get used to this kinda night patrolling :D  so back to bed i go with nary a worry about jason's whereabouts...

to be continued...

#camprock