I'll post another one of these about the stuff from after Camp Shenandoah some other time, but for now, here's my Camp Shenandoah wasn't-online-for-a-while blog stuff.
Day 1
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Lots of work (setting up tents, carrying beds to campsite, loading tents/cots for the kids' campsites into the truck and unloading them at the sites), but seemed like a pretty good start! Lunch was okay (ham/turkey + cheese sandwiches), dinner was pretty "eh" (I only had chips, peaches, and pudding... "meal food" was green beans and those weird-ass chicken cordon bleu things.) Good thing I brought muchos snack-os.
Turns out I will need to come home this Saturday... or Friday night. Maybe. I'm still not 100% sure. Schedule throughout a normal week seems doable; if I can manage to wake up in the 7am -- 7:30 range I should be fine.
Got my own tent, muddafuggaaaaas!! It's a new one, too. Sadly, the staff campsite currently has no TP for my bunghole... so pooping will be happening in other places. It does have flush toilets, though! So does the dining hall, actually... that's new.
Randomly felt like drawing Numnums. Which I guess makes sense considering where I am.
I can hear frogs/toads from camp. And also thunder, at the moment.
Day 2
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Staff showers are kinda ghetto--built into the same almost-building as the latrines. Hot water works well, though!
Breakfast and lunch--more "eh" food. Fortunately there was cereal there at breakfast, but lunch had me on the "snack food diet," since the main "meal food" and the side dish were both inedible for ground beef and bacon-related reasons.
More work--moving up tents and cots. Left shoulder + upper arm are super sore now so I can't do much with those. Right wrist briefly started to hurt, but that seems better now.
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| Some random goofy drawings from the first few days. |
Day 3
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Camp is much less empty now that the Junior Staff and CITs here here. There's only barely enough space for everyone in the staff lounge... also, I now have an extension cord if I need to charge my phone or laptop. Lunch was once again "eh," and I ate nothing but chips and applesauce. Good thing I wasn't all that hungry.
Still a lot of working, but less exhausting than the first two days. Don't think my arm will be sore tomorrow. Wearing the shorts I sleep in as underwear might be cutting down on the legs-rubbing-together soreness somewhat, which is nice.
Also, found out that I won't need fancy-schmancy clothes for the swing dance thing I'm going to with Angela this Saturday, which is good since I don't have any!!
SALAD BAR!! The savior of camp meals has arrived!! (Dessert is good too.) Also, apparently I like bacon bits... even though I hate bacon.
..."training" was actually more like "dinky games that went on for waaaaay too long" this time. Almost got into a borderline crowd-freakout situation. Some of it wasn't so bad, like the "this is a booger" bit... but the awkward "hey, let's get to know each other... except not" games were really dumb. Hopefully that crap thins out or stops over the next few days.
Day 4
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...Staff showers are a lot less nice when you're not the first/only one using them. I haven't had such a shitty shower in YEARS. And that was after maybe two or three other showers... can't imagine how much it must suck if you get in there right after "shower rush-hour" or something.
If the other showers are open already, I'll probably be walking over there to get showers from now on... at least if I'm not up early enough for a decent one here.
...And I just found a tick on my stomach. A little one, kinda dark brown... and it had already bitten on. Was able to get it off pretty easily (and its head didn't come off inside the bite or anything) so it probably wasn't there for long.
Also just realized that I seem to have forgotten to bring my comb back... that kinda sucks.
Breakfast slightly less "eh" this time--biscuits were good so long as you didn't contaminate them with gravy. Plus, there was cereal (as always.)
Went on a tour of camp, and got a map! Also: actual Assistant Ranger work started today. And lunch! Way better than previous meals--salad bar AND pizza! Supper was closer to "eh" again (unnecessarily beef-infested spaghetti), but salad/breadsticks/pudding saved it.
I got to drive the camp truck today. Took a bit of getting used to, since the shifter (from drive/reverse/park) is in a different place and the parking brake is completely different... but once I was used to that it wasn't hard at all, I just had to drive slowly + carefully on the bumpy camp roads. And they were very bumpy. Made a trip up to Archery to drop stuff off, and then to Scoutcraft and Nature, before back to Maintenance. Also, had to pick up cardboard boxes from the trading post and dining hall, to drop off where the recycling stuff goes.
Also: Got to play Munchkin! We didn't actually finish the game because it got too late, but still.
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| The map. With drawings and terrain detail added by me, of course. |
Day 5
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Woke up to find mysterious bugbites on some of my toes. At least, I assume they're bugbites... they weren't there last night and just kind of appeared overnight.
And finally--good breakfast food! Pancakes!! Lunch not so much... pale, suspicious-looking chicken nuggets that I definitely didn't trust enough to actually try. Just had stuff from the salad bar, since the salad's always good. Dinner also repugnante, menos la ensalada.
Suggestion to any super rich people who want to donate stuff to camp: new washer/dryer for staff campsite. My bedsheets (the thin flimsy things that always get dry) were still soaking wet after a run through the dryer on the setting I usually use. That is bullshit. Also bullshit: showers. How the hell are you supposed to get a hot shower around here!? What on Earth did I do right the first time I used the staff showers to make it work so well? Even the other showers sucked today...
After-the-fact edit: The dryer actually wasn't that bad, I had set it wrong the first time... it works differently than other dryers that I'd used, and in attempting to set it to a normal setting I actually set it to only dry for 10 minutes or so. When I tried again later making sure to set it for 30 minutes, it worked fine... I just forgot to mention it in here, I guess. The washer, on the other hand, actually broke later in the week...
Day 6
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First thing we did this morning: practice putting up/taking down flags. I got to put them up once, or at least help put up one (the camp flag.) Wasn't nearly as complicated as I thought it might be.
And things went horribly wrong. Water at Andrews is out, so no showers or washing clothes. Everyone's going to use the shower house until Andrews' water is fixed, which means no showers there for me either... just some cold rinse crap, if I can tolerate the cold water long enough for that. To make it even worse... this is the day when I really needed to wash clothes. I have zero clean shirts now. One is maybe tolerable, but the other two I have with me... no way. They stink. Not sure about the one I'm currently wearing.
Crisis averted, maybe--water is apparently fixed ALREADY, so I will be able to wash shirts tonight after all. Showers still suck, but... at least I'll have clean clothes. Also, some really good banana pudding for supper. Along with salad, as always.
Yep, washer/dryer work again. And actually talked to people (and showed off Okédoké!) later on today! Today actually turned out good, despite early problems. And I may have introduced a kid to the OHRRPGCE, too--he wanted to know where to download it and everything!
Day 7
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Internet works again! Last night it was being weird. Also, I have a motel room booked for the weekend. Was surprisingly easy to get set up, and like I thought, a room was around $70 rather than this "over $100" nonsense my mom was assuming. Of course, she was probably thinking of rooms with two beds.
Lunch was great today--they had this fish with potato-strip breading and I ended up eating three of them, plus my usual salad. First meat-based food I've had (other than a hot dog and bacon bits... which probably aren't real bacon) since coming here.
Supper: also great! Best mac & cheese I've had in years!!
And got my swim test out of the way today, too. "Beginner" test was very easy. Will probably go back for "swimmer" later on in the summer.
And we had a campfire!! Went pretty well. I need to find out when Troop 2's going to be here so I can do the Poop Skit. Mwhahahahaha...
Day 8
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Work continues as normal. Weather's nice today--cloudy and not as hot, but also not raining. Plans for Saturday are pretty much set, so the weekend should go well.
Kinda scary for a little while there--had a "Code Green" (someone missing) which turned into a "Code White" (medical.) I'm not sure what happened but I don't think it was just a drill this time... one of the girls was lying face-down in some leaves near the showers and not moving, and they brought the medic in on a truck to pick her up, or check on her at least--I didn't see her get loaded onto the truck or anything so I'm not 100% sure what happened. I think she's okay now though (she just walked back in), so it might've just been a drill, but... it was unexpected and very convincing if it was.
Yep, apparently that was a drill. I'm glad they sprung it on us--the "Code Blue" drill was kind of lame in comparison because we knew it was a drill ahead of time.
It rained. A lot. Like Outpost-level rain for hours. My tent got rained in a bit, but everything seems fine... except possibly my power strip. Now, my laptop charger still works (and presumably so does the phone charger) so this isn't the worst-case scenario or anything, but still sucks. Hopefully it will work fine once it dries out... otherwise I'll need a new one in August when I head back to BV.
Day 9
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Last day of Staff Week! Should have plenty of time to wash clothes, dry them, and pack up stuff I'll need for the weekend... but just in case I don't I went ahead and packed some of it this morning.
...and it turns out this isn't just "last day of Staff Week" but "last day for me period." I've been "let go" for vague reasons. The only thing specifically mentioned was my driving, but... I specifically mentioned many times that I'd never driven a truck before (and I didn't go driving crazy or running over stumps or anything) so I'm not sure what the big deal was.
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