Summer camp

Here are two things you need to understand about summer camp:

1) It’s all fun and games.

2) It’s not all fun and games. 

My friend Lindsay posted this great article about summer camp on Facebook yesterday and it quickly garnered "likes" from our camp friends.

The writer makes a FANTASTIC point about camp being an invaluable life and job experience for the young adults who work there. My favorite part is when she compares working as a camp counselor to having a summer internship.

“…you are on call 24/7, sleeping six hours a night and spending the remaining 18 outside, running around with your campers, planning programming, catering to every need of your cabin and getting more mosquito bites than you thought physically possible…You want an easy, restful summer? Go get an internship. You can sleep all weekend long and get paid a lot more, too.”

So true. Reading the story brought back a lot of great memories.

Camp is one of those quintessential growing-up experiences. Though I never went to camp as a kid, I’m so thankful that my friend Kim and I randomly decided to sign ourselves up as camp counselors way back when. I ended up working two summers at Mountain Meadow Ranch Summer Camp in Susanville, California and learned way too much (how to wakeboard, how to get kids to listen to directions, how to make 100 pancakes on a little camping stove…) During my second summer, I was part of the lake staff. I drove this giant 18-passenger van filled with kids back and forth to Lake Almanor everyday and we spent hours tightening life jackets, driving boats in circles, handing out sunscreen and making sure everyone got back to camp happy and exhausted. It was the time of my life.

And it’s the only time in my life I’ve found it acceptable to show up to dinner in neon tights and pigtails or sing at the top of my lungs on a hike. I met other counselors from all over the world—from Israel to New Zealand to Scotland to Australia—and I still consider some of them my best friends. I'll never forget my campers either, and hope we left them with some good advice and tools for growing up. Many have them have since gone on to be counselors themselves. We’re all scattered around the world now. But the cool thing is, for a brief flash of existence, we once all sat on logs around the crackling campfire laughing and singing “M.T.A.” :)

Read the entire article HERE.

* Top photo of beautiful Mountain Meadow Ranch circa 2008, bottom photo of the awesome Apache cabin circa 2009