It's been a long time and I'm sorry that I didn't take time to update everyone while I was away. So this is going to be a long one and you'll have to bare with me while I explain everything chronologically. Or what I'm trying to call chronological but in fact, it's a bunch of timey-wimey jumble that will make very little sense. Just give it a try and see how far you get. If you make it to the very end, then you can post your comments and questions because you will inevitably have a few at least.
First off, Maine was an amazing experience on the whole.
It took me a moment to swallow my nerves before replying but as soon as I did the six other people waiting there, smiled at me and introduced themselves. That's when I knew that I was going to make some amazing new friends at this camp and that they were going to be from all over the world.
The first week was spent preparing for when the kids arrived. We did team building exercises and worked in out departments. My department didn't have a lot to do since the kids really are the Cliffe counselor's department. So I was a little bored that first week but we got really close as a department and worked on our amazing staff show skit. There were a lot of questions and stuff to remember but at the end of the week we were rewarded wit a social, bowling, and a party in Main Bunk where we ate all our meals.
The social was at a camp close by called Wildwood. While Pinecliffe is an all girls camp, Wildwood is an all boys camp and thus the staff there, as it was at Pinecliffe, consisted mostly of one sex. It went down about as well as a middle school dance... in the end I was playing volleyball and being eaten alive by bugs, ignoring the urge in the back of my mind telling me to go sit down in my comfortable group of new girlfriends.
No, I didn't get a boyfriend from this social.
Bowling was candlestick bowling and it was really hard. Lots of the over 21 staff were having fun though.... and there was a DJ hired with karaoke. It made for a very interesting night. I think that in the right crowd, candle stick bowling could have been loads of fun but we were still in that awkward stage of our friendships so bowling was awkward too.
Then the staff party was the following night and we had just been placed in our assigned bunks with our "co-counselors" where we would spend the rest of the summer. Earlier that week we were in one of the bunks that held a lot of people so that we were forced to get to know each other in a sort of close contact scenario.
So finally, after unpacking the smaller girls, called the juniors, and placing all their junk neatly away, we still had a few days worth of waiting for them to get there and that's when I started to get antsy. The Cliffe counselors were practicing our skits, making posters and name badges for our bunks, looking at the adorable pictures of the kids we were about to meet and generally getting pumped up.
Here's a view out out back door and down the bunk line. I thought it was cute to put our cabin in perspective of a couple of the others....
This is the dining room in Main Bunk. I ate every meal at these green tables sitting at either the head or the foot of the table as is tradition for Camp Pinecliffe.
Did I mention that we water-skied?
Yeah, the day before the kids got there they took all of the Cliffe counselors except the couple who didn't pass their endurance test and taught us to water-ski on the lake. Okay that was dumb, of course it was on the lake. Where else would they teach us? On a mountain?
So anyway...
The girls got there on a Thursday and I was surprised at the very non-existent amount of tears that these girls were shedding. In fact, all the other girls were screaming and shouting at their friends and running to give each other hugs as if they'd been to the end of the world and were thankful to have their lives back at the end of the trip. I didn't think that camp was that exciting when I was a kid but you know I also wasn't being sent to spend seven whole weeks at the camps I went to. I was lucky to make it through the singular week.
From that first day, things started moving really fast. All of my girls were spectacular and the people I was working alongside were great too. I only had one girl get homesick in the bunk and I had no problem staying up with her until we had made it through a week or so of camp and she was throwing fits at activities. Other than that, I had a bunk full of wonderful angels. I miss them terribly.
Here we are on a nature hike with one other bunk. We're on our way up this hill to see what they call "The Bear Trap"
This is that "Bear Trap"
This is the beautiful view from the top of that hill...
The lake out there is called Moose Pond.
Could you imagine waking up to this every morning?
Fourth of July was the most glorious sleep in day I've ever had....
I felt like I had earned those few glorious hours of extra sleep somehow. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Somewhere in there, is my first day off. It was a sunny Saturday and I was in a van with some of the best people I've ever met. We started off the day with the head light house in Cape Elisabeth.
Here's the light house.
Here's a view of the coast with the light house at my back. They wanted 5 bucks to go up to the top of the light house so this I did not do.
I spent a buck on a native root beer instead. This is made and sold only in Maine....or at least that's what they told me when I bought it.
I just knew it was cold and refreshing on that hot day....
This is lunch at the Lobster Shack. Fish sandwich and crinkle cut fries.....it was a good lunch.
This is the coast that The Lobster Shack overlooked. It was legitimately right outside their door with a bit of a dining area then all this rock dropping into the ocean.
I'm going to call this the baby light house because it wasn't very big but the ship painted on it was pretty. This is still at the Lobster Shack by the way.
Here's one of the Twin Lights that we could see (barely) from the Lobster Shack.
This was found on the way into the Portland (Maine) Mall. I couldn't resist the photo opportunity that it posed.
Somewhere in here, though unfortunately there are no pictures, there was a strawberry festival which we stopped at on our way to the mall. We picked and ate strawberries in the field and on the way to the mall. Unfortunately, we were overzealous and had to dump some of them because they would have melted/ gone mushy in the heat of the van parked in this very large open parking lot with the sun beating down on it....
After the mall we went into Old Portland (Maine) and split up for dinner. I ended up in a beautiful Irish Pub called RiRa for some of their Beef and Guinness stew. It was absolutely and indescribably delectable. I
From here on out, you'll have to bare with me because my camera decided to stop working after this. So I have a few pictures on a disposable camera of another day off but I have to finish off the roll before you get to see any of those.
Okay so back to the fourth, which was celebrated by playing "Camp Hogwarts" a Harry Potter themed station game sort of thing.....since I'm not really sure what else to call it.....
I think that the girls had a ton of fun but I was helping run a slip and slide/obstacle course station with two girls (staff) who should not have been working together. So my fourth was spent, making sure that the slip and slide worked.... i.e. going down it and spraying water on it.....and listening to those two fight about who was in control. One should have clearly been in control since she set it up and everything but the other was one of those people that had to have it her way all the time and threw a fit if she didn't get her way.....so she sat in the grass with a sort of pouty face on that made me want to laugh at her while the rest of us did the work. It was a fun day that ended in spectacular thunderstorms.
No, we didn't have fireworks on the fourth, but they never do. Fireworks were later, but let me get there first.
The weekend after the fourth of July, I got sick. I was taken to an urgent care with an upper respiratory infection. Nothing to worry about but I spent Friday and Saturday in the infirmary so they could make sure I was getting better. Sunday was my day off but I was worried about taking it because Kaila was sent home Saturday without much of a warning. I'm not going to say any more about that except that I missed Kaila like I would miss any other friend and I basically panicked when they told me that she wasn't at camp anymore. But I took my day off anyway.
That Sunday was a super adventure. From getting diesel in a gasoline powered car, to getting lost and then some, it was a hilarious day and I needed it. I think that day was one of the longest days spent doing nothing and having fun while doing nothing that I've ever had. Thanks for that go out to my friends.
Moving right along,
That Tuesday, Kaila was replaced by Ali who I wasn't sure I was going to get along with. From the moment I met her she was surrounded by campers and it didn't look like she knew how to handle them. So I took up the reins firmly and stepped up to the challenge of taking care of the girls on the stupid pedestal I thought that I needed to be on. That all back-fired on me and my stress level went through the loop. I was more and more frustrated with things that I couldn't fix and felt guilty when I had days to be in another department while someone watched my girls. It wasn't a great week up until Thursday.
Thursday came around and the personnel director came up to me at breakfast to ask if I would fill in on the Bailey Island trip that was leaving soon. Of course, I accepted and man was it a great day. We got there about noon and ate lunch while the tide was just finishing going out. Then we got on our bathing suits and headed down to the cliffs to explore the tide pools! We found sea stars, periwinkles and a crab that fit in the palm of my hand.
From the pools we made our way a little further on to what is called the Giant's Staircase. I felt like a professional rock climber or something as we made our way down these rocks to get closer to the water for a few minutes. It was spectacular and I could have spent the whole day climbing but we moved on for the last thing before we left which was called the Rock City.
In this little cove sort of thing in the rocks were a bunch of rock towers and tiny rock huts balancing magnificently in places that you would think it impossible to balance these things. All of it is said to be built by elves or fairies and it was absolutely mind-blowing. I wish my camera would have worked for that spot especially.
When I got back, I walked into my bunk to find all the girls and the counselors in salon mode. Thus, I found all my girls wanting their hair done, their nails painted, and make up on their faces. I was quickly put in charge of painting fingers and despite my sunburned, bathing suit wearing, worn out exterior, I managed to do a pretty good job on their fingers.
Why were they doing this?
Well, remember when I said that fireworks came later? Yeah, fireworks were that night over the lake, with a bunch of boys coming to our camp (a social) to watch with us.
I finally made it to a shower just before the social started and had enough time to throw some mousse in my hair and put on a little eye-liner. Apparently, it was just enough to have a guy interested in me.....
My girls were hilarious that night. They came back screaming at the top of their lungs about getting a boyfriend. Three of the seven came back this way and it was really hard not to laugh at them. They were really pretty much the most adorable things I'd ever seen.
That weekend, I was off with the girls on Saturday and we headed out to a waterfall called Diana's Baths. It was absolutely beautiful and I have pictures of it on the disposable camera that I hope to share with you all very soon. I'll even write a little more about it when I get those pictures to alleviate some of the length on this post.
After the waterfall, we ended up in North Conway for the evening. There was a coffee shop, a five and dime, and a mom and pop place for dinner all before the piece-de-resistance of BEN & JERRY'S ICE CREAM!!!!!
Yeah, that's right, I went into a Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop and had some Ben & Jerry's ice cream with a warm, just made waffle cone on the side and a guy who flirted with me while he scooped my favorite flavor.... it was a good night.
Monday rolled around and I was back to my stress filled work time. This week was particularly stressful because the parents of all the campers would be visiting that following weekend and everything had to be cleaned and prepared for that.
That Friday, I got a migraine that landed me in the infirmary again. I planned to go back to work Saturday but Saturday came and my head was still pounding. Saturday night I was in the Emergency Room with pain so bad that they knocked me out and gave me meds via an IV. I was back in the infirmary around 1 am that night and spent all of Sunday there where we decided that it would be best for me to go home and get this under control.
Mom flew to Maine to get me Monday July 23 and we arrived back at home about 1 am on Tuesday. I got in to see a doctor on Thursday and had an MRI on Friday. I missed Zac's birthday party on Saturday because I was in enough pain to take the meds prescribed by the doctor that knocked me out.
I go back to the doctor for the results of the MRI tomorrow (Tuesday 7/31) and hopefully, we'll figure something out.
I miss my girls at camp and I miss my new-found friends. I know that there isn't much more time left of camp but I still wish that I could have had that time to hang out with all of them. To watch my girls grow and to laugh with my friends just one last time. Maybe someday I'll see them again.
As for me,
I leave for BGSU in August. My move in date is the 19th and classes start the 20th. I'll be living in the French House again and I'm hoping that it won't turn out like the last time I was there but if it does, I'll make sure that I grin and bare it because this one I did to myself. I have to believe that it will be better though. I don't need any more downers for my 20th year of life.
Yeah, September 5, for those of you who don't know, is my 21st birthday. I have no plans and it is a Wednesday so I'll probably just hold my head a little higher that day and smile knowing that I've lived to see so many amazing things in my 21 years that others only dream of seeing in a life time.
Congratulations by the way, for making it to the end of this very long post. I know it ended a little morbidly but I'm sure it will pick up by the next post.
All the strength you will ever need is already inside of you.
Blessed Be
