More summer camp memories

I got to thinking today about my five things meme and I realized, first off, that two of those things were related - the belching and the day camp experience.

Yep - the guy counselors, whom I adored and idolized, are the ones who taught me how to burp! Hahaha!

Funny thing is, I don't remember one single girl counselor. Not one.

And girl counselors were always in charge of me. They would separate the kids up into groups of about 10, and assign a counselor to each group - of the same gender.

The sessions were two weeks long, with an overnight in the woods the last night. And the sessions ran all summer long. So - if I went all summer, that's about six different girl counselors assigned to me per year - for five years - and I don't remember one of them. LOL!

I do remember the counselors Steve, David, another friend of Steve's, and the director Lou, whom I had an insane crush on! And I still have a picture of Lou around here somewhere.

And I think that would be Steve that was the belching coach. And he was the one that would speed up the bus on the freeway access road at the hill - just a bit - so that we would bump up in the air a little bit!!

See they would take us to the YMCA in the middle of the day to swim and buy drinks from the soda machine (Strawberry Crush for me, please!) and then go back out to the woods for the rest of the day.

On the first day of the session, you would get assigned your counselor, and then the pack of you would go out wandering in the woods looking for the perfect campsite. Once you found it, you would make it 'home'. We tied twine on the trees to mark off our campsites, and then who knows what else to make it our own special space in the woods.

You know, come to think of it, I think there was a time or two that we were assigned a guy counselor.

And from the guy counselor, I learned to cook one of my favorite breakfasts - scrambled eggs with taco seasoning. In fact, I had it for breakfast this morning - on toast! YUMMM!

It is truly heartbreaking, as this camp is now held at a park. A park?! How lame! It is a huge park, but, it is still a park! Lame-o!

The area where the camp used to be held is now a new residential development - figures! - and a fancy shmancy walking trail, paved with concrete! Concrete?! You want to go walking through the woods on concrete? What is wrong with this picture?

Mark and I took the kids over there a couple of years ago, and we went off the concrete trail, as we are 'real woods' people, and I actually found some of the old neato spots. I might cry just typing this.

Seriously, that was just such a special time in my life. And to think it happened because my parents couldn't afford 'real daycare'. Wow. That blows me away just thinking about it.

When we were there, I found a special spot by the creek that my friends and I had a secret fort in, and we found where I think the horse barn was, and we found the old cemetery -- in which some of the original Richardson residents are buried. Like - old!

Oh! And one of my best friends - her nickname was Animalson (Allison). There were a few of us regulars, who came all summer - myself, Allison, Jennifer...and the guy counselors gave Allison and I those nicknames...mine eventually was shortened to Animal after she left - and one counselor even called me Ana. Hahaha!

I could write forever on this topic - I so loved that whole experience!