Girls Camp

I (Keith) got to go to girls camp with Nicole this year as a chaperon. It was a lot of fun but much different than the boy camp outs. First, the girls smell so much better than the boys! Also, the girls did not seem to have the short attention spans the boys have except when fire, knives, and dirt are involved. Girls camp seemed much more subdued. They tended to entertain themselves by making trinkets and braiding each others hair. By the end of camp, everyone had something done with their hair. All the male leaders had colorful feathers put into their hair. Nope, no pictures of that, no proof, just hear-say, sorry.

Originally the girls were supposed to go camping at Bear Lake. Because of the amount of rain and snow we had this year, the Bear Lake camp grounds were all underwater, literally. They had to move to a new location at the last minute. Luckily, a friend in our neighborhood said we could use their cabin. This was located east of Heber, about an hour and a half from us.


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The cabin was amazing. Me and one other leader were in charge of keeping hot water in the hot water heaters as they kept blowing out for some reason. Needless to say we had hot water the whole time (hot water = hot showers). The first 2 nights there we were able to sleep in the cabin. The third day we were at the reservoir boating and having fun until the weather turned and it got really windy and had some rain. I took some of the girls back to the cabin early and on the way was thinking, I sure hope everyone setup their tents correctly and had everything zipped up. When we got there, we found the tents in a swamp. Nicole's tent was the only one that was knocked over but did not have much water in it. All the others had a ton of water in them. My car of girls were troopers. We went right to work and started rescuing wet bags, clothes, and beds. As other cars of girls arrived, they dived right in to help. Before long we had everything undercover and drying.

So with swamped tents, the male leaders were pushed out of the cabin to make way for the 35+ girls and ~10 female leaders. I sure missed the comfortable beds and quiet cabin at night; we got to sleep in our cars. :(

We survived. Nicole made a new friend.

The girls hung out in the cabin instead of enjoying the mud and rain. Boys are so opposite.

The good thing about having the girls come in was that on the 4th day, a bear was spotted by neighbors roaming around. I am sure the parents were happy that no one was in the tents. The funny thing is that the leaders always tell the kids (boys and girls), no food in the tents! For the reason that critters (and bears) smell the food and like to eat it. They do not care if the tent is zipped or if someone is in the tent. When we asked originally, if there was food in the tents, the girls of course said that there was none. But, once we heard about the bear, it was amazing how much food appeared in the cabin out of nowhere!

Being up in the mountains we saw some cool wildlife. We did not see the bear, but saw the claw marks on the tree it made. We also saw some "moose-en in the woods-is-en", and some baby birds.

The last day, we played a fun game. Cracker wars? I think that was the name of it. I am not sure who had more fun, the girls or the leaders. Interesting how personalities pop out with games like this. The game had 2 teams. Each member had a half noodle (the kind that you take to the pool), so you could whack a Saltine cracker tied to your pants with dental floss. Use your imagination; and yes, it was a lot of fun. :)

So, back home we are. We had a lot of fun. Nicole had a great time.