TUESDAY
Today started with a vehicle check before breakfast because our day trip for Team Water Sports was leaving to Wet 'N Wild (Palm Springs) after the morning line call. Every time a camp van leaves Pine Springs Ranch we have to do a full check to see if the car is in good condition. It makes sense when you consider that both the staff and the campers are someone's child, and we want everyone who leaves camp to get back safely.
We also had the 3-Day Wake Trip Camp depart today after breakfast. The wakeboarding trip checkout is a much longer list of required forms to complete and it takes several hours to make sure everything is ready to go. The group left before 10 am, which was a new early record. The trip staff were excellent at getting everything ready and they've called twice to let us know how well things are going (so far) at Lake Silverwood. I have been wakeboarding several times, but I've never really been able to grasp the fundamentals of the sport. I hope the campers have better luck than I did when I went back in 2001.
The breakfast entrée today was waffles, with various toppings (for a full list of breakfast items, please see yesterday's post). I skipped the waffles and had a bowl of mini-wheats before checking-in with the campers in the cafeteria. I would say that we had 9 boys cabins in high spirits and 8 girls cabins who looked well-rested. I can usually tell if a cabin was up late talking because they drag into breakfast and look tired, and being sleepy at camp can really mess up the entire day.
A couple of the campers looked like they were a bit tired, but nothing that gave me anything to worry about. The cafeteria is a great place for me to examine to general health and well-being of all the campers, and if I'm not sure I can always just ask. Did I mention that there are so many familiar faces this week! I know so many of the boys by name and more than half of these campers were here last summer. I also noticed at check-in on Sunday that we had 110 campers on the express pass list. These kids really know what camp is all about and I have my eye on of few of them to (hopefully) hire as camp staff in the future.
After we raised the flag I drove a van to Palm Springs to drop off campers at Wet 'N Wild. I couldn't stay with them (don't worry, we had 2 staff with them) and they arrived back safely at 5:20 pm. I saw a few of the boys during cabin check tonight and they all expressed to me how much fun they had. They had Subway for lunch while at camp the tweens had enchiladas, Mexican rice, and beans as the main course of a balanced meal. The campers received their mail right before lunch, and it was a record-setting amount of mail (by the pound).
Usually after lunch I have the opportunity to spend time with campers during rotations, but today we had two important meetings about the trip tomorrow and the weather forecast for the rest of the session. The trip tomorrow is to Pole Position in Murrieta with the Small Engine Racing activity group and we have 11 campers going on the trip. This means we'll have 4 staff to meet and exceed the 1 to 4 supervision ratios for day trips, which is perfect.
If you've seen the 7-day forecast, we're expecting it to get hot at camp. In order to combat heat exhaustion, sunburns, and other heat related dangers, we've decided to 1) move morning worship indoors, 2) increase sunscreen breaks, water breaks, and shade breaks, 3) and monitor campers even closer for any negative signs associated with the heat wave. I will post updates related to the weather every day, and I'm really hoping for clouds and maybe some precipitation this weekend.
Once our meetings were done, I drove to Hemet briefly to add a driver to a rental van, came back to camp just in time for Big Event on the field. I'm entirely sure what the game was this afternoon, but the campers told me that it was called 'Turkey Run' and there was more laughter than usual as they ran all over the field. I was caught up in another issue during Big Event, and it wasn't something pleasant.
We had a camper go home today for bullying, which is the second time we've enforced our zero-tolerance policy this summer. I really hope that it's the last time we have to send someone home this year but we'll never hesitate to enforce the policy. One bully in a cabin can really ruin everyone's week, and I know for sure that no parents wants to hear that their child was threatened, belittled, or had a bad time because of another child.
The dinner entrée was tomato soup and grilled cheese, a camp favorite. That meals comes with the entire salad bar, chips, water, milk, plenty of things to choose from. Some campers had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with their grilled cheese, so a few may have overdone it on carbohydrates. It's probably not bad considering how much the campers have been running around all day today.
After dinner we had a bit of rest time before the evening program, and then it was time for bed. I went up to boy's village tonight to check on everyone again before sitting down to work on some more paperwork and administrative duties that have to be completed before tomorrow. Overall it was a good day, I am a little worried about the weather but I think moving more of the activities indoors should help. The Trailmaster hiking class may not be able to go out on Friday, and if they do go on their day trip I plan to probably send a camp administrator with them to ensure the success of that activity. We'll be evaluating the weather every day to make the best decisions for all the campers so that they'll have a great week at camp.
Blessings,
-Jeremy
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