done.

Winding down

It is week six. That means we are beyond the point where we have found our pace to run at. We are so used to the pace, we don't even realize we are running. But we do know we want to stop.



Mmmmmmmm, week six.


We built a fort today. It's made out of milk crates and giant palates we use for tent floors. We have something like 216 crates for the walls, three palates for the floor (one for a porch) and two for the ceiling. And two chairs. And two mattresses. With a nice view in front. We need a camo blanket or something for the back so people eventually (a week and 5 days left) forget it's there.


PS I have to poop.

Oh dear lord

There are things on camp that I love doing. Hiking. Swimming. Canoing. Gravy. Cleaning up a giant barrel of water which has been vomitted into, then left for a week. Or two. And there may have been a piece of shit or two. Plus some trash. And flies.
Fortunately, the smell was totally bearable. Seriously.
If you can call vomit, gravy, poop, fly poop, and poop all mixed into a soup that had turned black bearable.
Which you can't. By the by.
Anyway, we slowly moved it to a ditch (spilling on ourselves, eliciting giggles from the crowd of onlookers and gags from Colin and I) and then put a trash bag on top of the barrel to use as a filter to catch the trash when we dumped it over.
The smell didn't improve when we poured it out. It just spread out.
Seven hours later, we still have the smell on our hands. And by we, I mean me because I'm not a little girl who washes his hands/arms forty times.


Good story.

Camp has made me a man

I really love my job a lot of the time, because it allows me to do all sorts of cool, useful things I never did at home. Such as:
-fix toilets
-troubleshoot plumbing in general
-drive a standard
-operate a chainsaw
-replace a tire (which I could do, but this just reassured me that I can)
-really basic electrical work

And I'm sure there's other stuff. But that's what comes to mind. This summer, I am a man.

Exhausted and Sick

Chinese food is the plan for the evening, assuming I can stay below the radar. Which shouldn't be too hard.
Two interesting climbing tower stories:
Yesterday I was on top encouraging kids to the top. A scout, clearly terrified of heights, had reached the top. Generally, that's when they get lowered to the ground. His dad, the scoutmaster, of course knew better than that. So he yelled at him to climb up. Once on top of the tower, the scout curled into a ball and began to cry. After fifteen minutes of this, I finally got him to sit up and look at me. But then he grabbed onto my arms and wouldn't let go. So another fifteen minutes later, Les (previously described) the climbing director, climbed up and hooked himself onto the kid. The kid's name was Andrew by the way. Les hooked Andrew to his harness, and pretty much jumped off the wall, pulling Andrew behind him. Andrew screamed until he was halfway down the wall and realized he was moving at about an inch an hour.

Story two happened today at the tower with my SALT guys. Nathan, a bigger guy, probably around 225 and 5'6", was on the line I was belaying. I looked down for a minute to get the sun's glare out of my eyes and suddenly Nathan yelled, "falling," which indicated he was falling. I locked the rope off but the rope has about eight feet of stretch and so he still fell that distance, the entire time I watched in horror hoping he would stop as I pulled with all my might on the rope. He stopped and eventually made it up that side, and down the other on a fireman's rappel line.


Ta-dah!

Man, where on Earth is Eddie

So I can now totally rock a standard. I spent all afternoon driving the other camp truck, since mine (Kevin, my boss's) has a blown solenoid or something along those lines. This one is a standard and he's all 'come on you're driving.' Apart from one notable embarrassing scene where I stalled about eight times in front of a scoutmaster/five staffers, I was tearing it up. And in a good sense.

I'm really hoping for rain tonight. I sort of just want to go in to town (San Marcos) and laze around. But if we don't get rain, I can just do that tomorrow. So really what's the difference. Not much, I know.

Aaaaaaand...that's about it. Pretty boring week. The best kind.

No interesting title:(

Today was eerily calm. Sundays are traditionally the hardest days for commissioners. Troops arrive at 1:30, bringing with them an onslaught of problems and 'opportunities.' We spend all day trying to get everyone in proper campsites, with the gear they need, and in a general sense of satisfaction.

But today was notably blasé. I had essentially one problem, where a troop wanted to expand into the campsite next to theirs to have more tents. They could. And that was it. Totally lame.

There are two College Station troops here this week, which is incredibly abnormal. One who traditionally comes to camp, and my home troop who comes every other year. Its been a pretty long time since I was active with the troop, so I only know a very select group of the adults and boys who they brought.

And that's it...