June, 2002

Camp Howard

As the bus drove into the camp we would be staying at for three days, I looked out the window. It was a cold and cloudy day, and it was slightly raining. All the camp counselors were standing there, waiting for us. I was very anxious for the cabins to be called, as I wanted to be in the same cabin as my best friend Karissa.

After we had gotten off the bus, the counselors wanted to take us on a tour. How long could they possibly drag this out? But, after the tour, they separated our cabin groups. I was very anxious, and I crosed my fingers for good luck. The rain had already stopped, and the first cabin was called. "With Cyndyr, the Chinook cabin...." and Teal, the leader, as you could call him, read off the girls' names. My twin sister was in that group.

Teal then read off the names for Bear cabin. "Christina, Karissa," I really hoped I was in the Bear cabin! "Mel, Remi, Paige, Scarlett, Heather, Kassi, and Samantha." I smiled and walked with my cabin group to go get our luggage. We had two cabin counselors, Juniper and Ruby. All the counselors had fake names, and some were pretty weird, such as Pontoof and Skunk. After we had gotten our luggage, I was feeling very excited. What would we do tomorrow?

Once we had gotten to our cabin, we started to unpack. I didn't know what to expect in the days to come. Juniper, one of our counselors, took out a decoration and hung it from the ceiling. It looked a little like this: Each color was a different ring that could spin around or you could arrange it how you liked it. We also made posters to decorate the walls with.

I was very excited. Our cabin leaders were very nice, and I was with a few friends in my cabin. The next thing we did was a class called field studies. We were doing soil field study later, and I hoped I earned a bead for completing soil field study.

We had nametags, which were a circular piece of wood with your name on it attached to a string so you could wear it as a necklace. You could earn different types of beads for field study, and earning Z's, which is an award you get for being quiet and getting into bed after lights out.

Bedtime was at 9:45 pm each night, and we woke up at 7:00 am. At the end of the day, I was very tired. We had gone on long hikes, sang and learned TONS of songs, and learned a lot of facts on soil field study.

The food was great, and I had to wait forever to get inside the Dining Hall! First, all the girls get into 3 lines -- 1 for hosts, 1 for jumpups, and 1 for eaters. The eaters just, basically ate. The hosts would go pick any counselor as their guest, and then go inside and be seated. Then the jumpups entered, and sat at a table. After the jumpups entered, the eaters (I was an eater) had to stay in the straightest lines and quietest lines possible, and whoever was doing a better job of being quiet and straight lines got to go first. The girls got to go first, and I was happy.

After the rest of the eaters had been seated, the hosts introduced themselves and their guests. Then the jumpups went and got the food and served us all. We had our meal of turkey-vegetable noodle soup, homemade bread, salad, and for dessert, chocolate-chip cookies -- homemade. It was delicious!

I felt very happy because of the anticipation of the activities to come in the following days. Right after sunset, we went to campfire. At campfire the staff would shout, "Is ____ cabin here?" and whatever cbin they called they would do a cabin call. A cabin call is when the people in a cabin do a cheer or something to say hi.

Camp Howard was so much fun, and when you're in 6th grade, you'll find outdoor school is fun too.

by Samantha H., A-6

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