Great Counselors

What would camp be without the terrific counselors we have each year? I am grateful now more than ever for great counselors as my daughter (featured here) is camper age.

If you were ever a camper at FPYC, then you had an experience with a counselor. Usually they have made for good memories. I am grateful for Richard Houle, Chris Shanks, Brett Osborne, Paul Maynard, and many others.

Anyone else have a counselor they would like to honor here on the camp blog?

Camp Fire

Campfire has been the one of the most fun, crazy, and meaningful times of camp sessions. If ever there were a place at camp where traditions were perpetuated, it is the campfire.

B-u-bb-l-e g-u-m spells bublegum bubblegum.
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
There's a hole, there's a hole in the middle of the sea
Three blue pigeons
Myrna

Oh the pines are ablaze...

What are your favorite moments around the campfire?

The Sandpit - only a pit stop

When I learned that the sandpit was no longer and interactive event with nature, but was a relic that inspired nostalgiac storytelling, I became sad. My children will never have the joy I did of managing their way down the precarious sandpit.

Yes, it's steeper now, but good grief. I wanted to join my kids in a trip down the sandpit and I couldn't.

It kind of felt like being in school and the whole class getting punished for the misdeeds of the one punk in the class.

Yes, I understand the safety first thinking htat goes into deciions like this, but in my not so humble opinion, the decision stinks.

On the other hand, my kids will never miss it like I would, never having tasted the joys of the sandpit.

Too Cute

I am not sure what is going on here in this picture. Could it be a gopher in pink? A cute pose? Who knows? All I know is that cuteness seems to emerge around the campfire every year.

Fun in the sun

Camp was hot this year - Texas hot. With highs soaring into triple digits and no AC to be found, smart campers headed to the lake for a wonderful cool down.

I found the lake 5 times this summer during the session I attended - a personal record. I was not alone.

Water basketball games broke out daily during boy's swim period. I do not know what happened during girl's swim period, but I heard reports that it was quite busy as well.

I was grateful for a beautiful, clean lake for a refreshing dip. No weird green color, no poisonous snakes, and no creepy cloudy opaque am-I-gonna-catch-something color to the water - like I have seen in so many lakes in other states.

Anyone else enjoy swimming this summer?

The Lodge

This is one of the last pictures of the original lodge. It was taken July 2006. In fact, next visit to camp will reveal a new lodge.

The lodge has been one of the spiritual centers since Flaming Pine Youth Camp was purchased from the boy scouts back in the 1970's.

I have had so many deep and influetial spiritual experiences in this old lodge - too many to recount.

The lodge, back in the day, had three rooms on the end opposite the main door. My first night ever slept at Flaming Pine Youth Camp was in the center room of these three rooms in the lodge. I was too young to be in a cabin group, which would have actually been in a tent. I remember the cots that folded down from the wall. The director's "office" was next door and had one of those old mimeograph machines in it printing out those purple colored copies.

What have you experienced in the old lodge?