Road Trips & Astronaut Food - Weekly Roundup 5

Week 5 marked the beginning of the third, and final, session of summer camp; I was moved out to Tall Timbers, a set of adorable blue cabins just off of main camp.

I am working with Nemo and Phelps, both of whom I've already been in a unit with. We were joined by Trout, who is a live-in; I'm really happy with the staff I've been put with!

The reason that there are only three unit staff is because we had one program and sixteen girls. Compared to the horrors of Week 3 (31 girls, 3 programs, 4 staff, 2 interns and a live-in, and a partridge in a pear tree), these numbers were a piece of cake! I was also happy because my Week 5 program was Road Trip, which I did in Week 1 and really enjoyed.

I also like Tall Timbers because I'm getting really good at walking around camp at night without a flashlight, and there's a dark path through the woods to the unit which is good practice for my new night vision skills. As for the highlights of Week 5:

• My second trip to the Ben & Jerry's factory! It was a hit, obviously, and we got plenty of ice cream. As well as a sample (sweet cream and cookies), I had a Milk & Cookies shake, and bought myself a tub of ice cream and a pin that says 'Body by Ben & Jerry's'. We had a lot of fun and an especially funny moment was when Phelps' ice cream scoops fell off of her cone and she epically caught it in her hand.

• My kids made me laugh on a couple of occasions. At lunch one day, one of them asked me if I was a vegetarian after watching me eat a slice of pepperoni pizza. Another day I had just woken up from a nap and I heard one of the girls say, "We should wake Pepper up, it's nearly lunchtime." then another girl hurriedly said, "No no, that's not a good idea. Let her sleep!"
• Our second trip was the Montshire Museum of Science (YEAH, SCIENCE!). It was such a cool place, it even had a T-Rex skeleton. There was also a scale model of a human skeleton and a moose. It was a really interactive museum with lots of stuff to do - I think we counsellors had even more fun than the kids. I especially enjoyed the fog room, the bubble place, and the area dedicated to weather systems in space! I was in my element at the museum, and bought some penguin stickers and a pack of astronaut food (freeze-dried Neapolitan ice cream).

•  A short stop at Hanover, which is a college town not too far from camp. I accidentally bought three books at Barnes & Noble - a book of Grimm's fairy tales, Dante's Inferno, and a cute book called The Book of Myself, which has prompts for parts of life spanning from early, middle and later years - it's like a DIY autobiography!

• Rivir's coffee disaster - she went to pour a little sugar into her coffee and the top of the container fell off, spilling loads of sugar into her cup. Nemo and I couldn't stop laughing, but Rivir got a laugh herself when she told me to take a sip of the resulting beverage. I sipped, sat there in shock, and then informed Rivir that I now had diabetes.
• Splash Week occurred during this week (and as of the end of Week 5, there are still some survivors, so it will continue into Week 6). Basically, a bunch of counsellors signed up to be part of it and each of them were given the name of one of the other participants to be their victim. They have to splash their victims with a cup of water, and the splashee's victim becomes the splasher's new target. This continues until the last counsellor standing. Victims can protect themselves by having their campers in a circle around them, and splashes can't occur indoors or at program areas like the waterfront or barn. It was funny to watch the dwindling number of counsellors get more jumpy and paranoid as the week went on. The funniest thing was Trout managing to splash Tim Tam four seconds after Splash Week officially began. Trout is now out of the running, but Phelps is still standing, so we're supporting her - it was funny to see her with a constant orbit of kids whenever we went anywhere.
• Luna has a couple of hermit crabs and Phelps and I were playing with one while our kids were doing Ecology. She was so cute and kept retreating back into her shell if we moved too suddenly ♥

• Our last trip was to Quechee Gorge. On the drive there, Pugs produced a huuuuuge bag of Starburst for me and the girls to snack on, which was a promising start. She lobbed a handful over her shoulder for the girls when they weren't expecting it, and they were baffled by the sudden Starburst missiles flying through the van. They went to the climbing centre, and had a lot of fun there - there was also a cute dog belonging to the owner that we all fawned over.
  After climbing, we went to the Gorge itself - it was a lovely walk down, and the view at the bottom was beautiful. The weather was really bright and warm, and we basked for a while before the long climb back up (that was knackering).
  We also popped to the village, where there was a Cabot store selling all sorts of Vermont-made goodness; I sampled a lot of cheese and some lovely fudge - I ended up buying some fudge (raspberry and chocolate swirl), real maple syrup, a postcard with a photo of Quechee Gorge on it, some jellybeans, Pepsi, and a glass bottle of grape soda. Nemo and I also took a turn around an adjacent antique store and cried over all the beautiful old things.
  Pugs made me laugh yet again when three of my girls were sitting on those rides where you put a quarter in and they move. They thought, because they were antique, the rides wouldn't work. Pugs came along and stuck a quarter in all three of them, and they did work, which scared my girls to death. It was hilarious!

• We got tired of our girls asking constant questions about what we were doing next during the day, so I began to reply with "Stuff and things." - Phelps and Nemo quickly caught on to this habit and we are now stuck saying this whenever questions occur.
• I tried my first sample of genuine Vermont-made maple syrup. Nemo had been nagging me for two weeks to try it, and all of my girls had egged me on, and I can say I'm glad I tried it. It is heaven.
• I finally had a successful overnight! We cooked dinner at Tall Timbers, and our dessert was a s'mores pizza after how well it was received the previous week. It was ridiculously melty and sugary and delicious, and the kids loved it. We then went over to the Lakeside site and put up tents in the dark, which was a palava. But it didn't rain, and we managed to stay out there all night! I was very pleased, even though I ached all over from lying on the rather rocky ground all night. I was also pleased with my campfire that I made back at Tall Timbers:

• I finally made a successful tie-dyed shirt. It's pink and purple, in a spiral pattern, and I haven't yet managed to take a photo of it. But it's amazing, and I'm rather proud of myself.
• At the weekend, we popped to Applebee's for dinner, and to Walmart to forage for snacks, and London and Tink were really impressed on the way back to camp, when I rapped the entirety of Party Up by DMX (a very un-camperrific song indeed).