At war with chickens

What?  It’s time for my weekly post again?  I guess I should wrap up my camp series since I have been back for three weeks now…  Let’s see what I can write about.  How about the annual new thing at camp?  This year it was the water slide.  No, nothing fancy like at water parks- just a large, plastic(?) construction pipe shooting down into one of the camp’s many water holes- one that fortunately did not have a (deserved) name like Leech Lake.  Actually there were two pipes- only one of which the kids got to go down due to their age.  It went straight (well, angled) down into the lake.  The other one had a nasty upward curve at the end- this became the unofficial leader slide.  This pond, by the way, was 14 feet deep at maximum so  the kids wore life vests.  As well, there were a few lifeguards who were fortunately unneeded for our time there.  I helped a little with pushing kids down and managed to go down the leader slide twice during the time.  As leaders, we weren’t required to wear life vests and so I didn’t.   I have to say I didn’t entirely enjoy the experience, though it was certainly exhilarating.  It probably has to do with my paranoia of losing a contact in the water.  I wore goggles, but they were ripped off my head during the landing the second time I went down.  I felt it happen so I kept my eyes tightly closed while swimming, thereby keeping both contacts intact.  Needless to say, that was my last time down the slide.  After that I had a little fun dragging some of my campers through the water by their feet when they approached shore- something that could only be done because the life vests kept them afloat.

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An activity introduced last year was the pontoon boats.  The kids were taken on a tour over the lake on these boats, and even made a stop for some swimming fun and ice cream.  Unfortunately I didn’t get to partake this year due to overcrowding- only two leaders got to go with.  Notice in the above picture (remember, you can click on them for larger versions!) three different head-band colors on just the boys- that’s three different cabins without counting the girls cabins also present!  So, one leader promptly dragged down a kayak, intending to follow the pontoon boats and another quickly followed suit.  Never having been in a kayak before, I didn’t think following the pontoon boats would be suitable for me, but as I had been looking at these kayaks wistfully over the last few years I did decide to take one out.  I later learned that I could have just taken the kayak out to the swim and ice cream spot but I didn’t know at the time so I just paddled around the kids doing canoeing (an activity my cabin missed out on this year due to a windy day the day before).  It was fun, but I am not sure what I would have done had the kayak flipped.  I guess I would have had to slide out and drag it ashore as I can’t imagine how I could flip it back over while sitting in it or getting back in in the middle of the lake after sliding out and turning it over.  Fortunately I didn’t have to.

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Did I mention Leech Lake earlier? That last picture is Pastor Steve getting tossed into Leech Lake as one of the many rewards for treasures kids could find. After he climbed out, he counted out the leeches as he pulled them off. Don’t worry, there weren’t too many, but earlier in the week he had the service who had the most sign-ups shave his hair into a mohawk- poor Steve! My team lost this one by the flip of a coin (two services tied), oh well.

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My final say on camp week, unless I remember something else I wanted to write, is about the drama.  Every year there is drama included as part of the lesson time, but until this year I didn’t get to do it.  Part of this was due to uncertainty over whether I would even go to camp as summer work was unclear.  This year I was able to say that I was going for sure, but even so I didn’t get to perform until the last evening session.  Originally I was going to play a role as a soldier prepared for battle, but the day Pastor Steve came to get me during cabin rest time, my junior counselor was asleep so I couldn’t leave the cabin, and it was felt that I shouldn’t wake him up.  Instead, they switched my role to the Colonel who was waiting for the soldiers to be prepared (one was Private Slacker, so as you can imagine not everyone was prepared… long hair, wrong uniform, silly things in backpack, lack of understanding…).  On the last day everyone was surprised when Slacker was actually prepared much to the surprise of  his drill sergeant who was afraid to show him to the Colonel.  By the way, my name was Colonel Sanders- we were at war with the chickens of course- now why would chickens be at war with the Colonel?  Hmm…

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EDIT: A couple more waterslide shots I pulled from the camp video:
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