Wednesday, July 11, 2007

CHBM: Summer Camp Memories

The theme for this week's 38th edition of the Crazy Hip Blog Mamas Carnival is "camping". As I did not exactly enjoy my experiences tent camping with my family, I'm going to talk about something I have very fond memories of: the YMCA girls' camp I attended as a "tween".

Camp Nokomis is an old-fashioned camp located on Bear Island in Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. We would get to the camp by riding on a dilapidated old boat called "the Bear". Unlike the specialty camps popular today, it focused on providing a well-rounded menu of sports activities, outdoor recreation, nature exploration, and arts & crafts. Mornings would start off with "polar bear" swims at dawn rain or shine unless there was a thunderstorm. Then there would be the raising of the American and camp flags, family-style breakfast, and cabin cleanup. Activities I recall participating in included waterskiing, sailing, soccer, orienteering, synchronized swimming, drama, leathercraft, and swimming lessons. Evenings there would be camp sing-a-longs, games, skits, and on Sundays chapel. We Catholics would go to Mass on Sunday mornings as well. At the end of the session, there would be a dance with the brother boys' camp, which was pretty awkward at our age, LOL!

I would have to say that it was definitely the highlight of the summers I went, and I only wished that my parents could've afforded to send me for longer than just 2 weeks (most campers stayed a month and some the whole 8 week season).


4 comments:

Susan said...

See, now THAT kind of camping would be fun!! Thanks for commenting on my blog too! :-)

Sharon - Mom Generations said...

Oh yes.. I agree with Susan... if I had to camp, that's my speed baby!!
- Audrey
Pinks & Blues Girls
http://www.pinksandbluesgirls.wordpress.com

Bliss said...

wow, do they have specialty camps now? i am sooooo behind the times. yep, i remember co-ed dances at camp too. :-) whoa! some campers stayed longer than 2 weeks? i wonder how much that cost back then?

Amanda said...

This camp sounds FUN!