Summer Camp Secrets

8:45am
It’s my day off and I’m up before 9am. What am I thinking? Me and the girls (Rosie, Rosa, Tash and Caitlin) are driving to Vermont today to go and choose the horses that we’ll have at camp for the summer. Ok, well really Rosie’s choosing the horses (she’s the Riding Director) and the rest of us are just along for the ride (no pun intended. haha). I don’t have to go, but I know if i don’t that I’ll have serious FOMO when they come back with funny road trip stories

12:15pm
Finally made it to Pond Hill Ranch. Had a look around and now we’re just waiting for the cowboy guy (but seriously, they are actual cowboys here) to start bringing out the horses for Rosie to ride.

It was a long  3 hour journey but  there was so much hilarity. I’m glad I came. We had tunes, we had singing, we had stories. It was all going so well. And then we hit a groundhog. Rosie was driving, and I was sat next to her in the passenger seat. We were just idly minding our own business and suddenly there he was, just meandering across the middle of the road. ‘SHIIIIIIIT’ was our reaction. But there was nothing we could do. We hit him. It would have been more dangerous (for us) to try to stop or swerve around him (I have no idea if it was a boy or girl, but I’m going for a ‘him’).

We spent the next 5 minutes all wailing ‘ahhhh what do we do?’, ‘Should we go back and see if he’s dead?’, ‘what do we dooooo?’. And then we drove past a vet. We very seriously considered turning around and bringing him to the vets, but then realised that would involve picking up a (probably) dead wild animal and putting him in the camp van. Probably not a good idea. So we named him Bobby and said our goodbyes. RIP Bobby.

Anyway, so yeah. Now we’re at the ranch – got a little lost on the way here as the GPS told us to go up a driveway that turned out to be someone’s house and a dog started barking at us. We turned around and got outta there pretty sharpish.

Ooh here comes the first horse. I can’t believe I used to be scared of horses. They’re so lovely.

4:40pm
On our way home to camp now. Spent about 3 hours at the ranch, watching Rosie ride all the horses. She had to choose 10 new ones to come to camp for the summer – that’s a lot of riding. We ‘helped’ her choose some good ones though (I don’t know how helpful we actually were, but we did think of some good names). Rosie rode a really little pony too (he’ll be for the day campers and tiny kids) which was too funny. Her feet were practically touching the ground. We called him Teddy.

In McDonald’s now, getting some food before we get back to camp. Discussing Bobby’s demise. We aren’t sure if we killed him outright, or if we just clipped his back legs. We’re gonna have to see if he’s still there on the way back. Rosie just crawled around on the floor doing an impression of Bobby-no-legs. So mean, but so funny. And then she mocked me for thinking her leggings were jeans – ‘No, Rusja, it’s a legging!’. LOL. Maybe you had to be there.

6:45pm
Definitely killed the groundhog. Just drove past him lying in the middle of the road, with his legs stuck out in the air at funny angles. To quote Rosie – ‘ah man, the riggi’s set in’.

9pm
Surprisingly tired considering all I’ve done is sit in a car all day. Got back to camp to the news that we’re not allowed proper beds in our tents this year. Each section has a ‘head’ tent where the section head and an activity head or two sleeps – it has electricity which is the main perk. The other big perk being that (every year I’ve been at camp) the people that sleep in head tent get to have a ‘real’ bed, instead of the wooden bunks (which are totally fine and in every other tent on camp). I LOVED having a bed last year and a princess bug net and being able to sit up in bed properly. Grrr. Kind of vaguely annoyed about it tbh. I understand why (there’s nowhere to put the extra bunks that we take out of our tent), but still.

I think was actually more annoyed that other people weren’t more annoyed, if that makes sense? I don’t know. It’s weird. Every tiny little thing is exaggerated so much here. Sometimes you kind of have to step back and realise that some things really aren’t such a big deal. I went for a run to clear my head and it sort of worked. Think I just needed to get some space from everyone for half an hour. Went down to the lake and sat there for a while. I forget to appreciate how amazing this place is sometimes.

10:35pm
Just chilling in the big bedroom in our cabin. We found this heaps creepy painting of a girl in the cupboard in Caitlin’s bedroom and everyone’s a bit freaked out by it. Anyway, Cam somehow managed to nab it as he left and then he crept round the side of the house and suddenly slammed this painting up against the window, scaring the absolute crap out of everyone. Morgan jumped off the bed and fell to the floor. Super funny. I love this lot. Can’t believe all the other counselors start arriving this weekend. Don’t know how I feel about it. I kinda like our little crew.

It’s my birthday in 2 days! Love having my birthday here. Camp birthdays are the best.