Camping

   I had a show I was designing costumes for.  Almost Maine, in typical summer stock fashion, was created on a shoestring with less time than I would have liked.  It opened Friday, so I can breathe for a few days before diving into the next show - Rounding Third.  Opening night happened without me, as I was on my way to camp with my Girl Scout troop.
    I love going to camp.  It is so nice to sleep in the tents and sit around the fire, talking, singing, eating s'mores.  I hate getting ready for going to camp.  The packing is not so bad, but making sure that everyone was assigned an equal portion of the menu groceries, and that I do not forget the frying pan or the buddy burners can get a little stressful.  To top it off, we invited another troop to join us, so we were blending two leader's styles. 
   I think it was successful.  My attitude about camping with Cadettes and Seniors is that they have enough people telling them what to do and when to do things every day, that they should be able to relax.  We did. We cooked on our hobo stoves using our buddy burners for fuel.  We took a hike.  We did a quick service project of moving all the row boats down from winter storage and rowing them over to the docks.

    We swam. It was quite chilly, but the girls went in!  The best thing was that Friday night they decided they were going to get up early, hike to the old fire tower built by the CCC, and climb it to watch the dawn.  All the girls in my troop got themselves up at 4 a.m. Saturday morning and grabbed an apple to munch, took their flashlights and their emergency whistles, and went to watch dawn break.  They had a wonderful day for it, and on the way home they saw a yearling fawn in the bracken.
    Is it a bit of a pain getting ready for these weekends? yes. Is it worth the effort - oh heck yes!