My Week at Camp Susque September 2, 2009

I went to camp with my family from August 9-15. Our good friends, the Rodatuses, told us about it. I’m so glad we got to go this year. I’m going to tell you about Camp Susque’s Homeschool Family Camp from my perspective.

Camp Susque was so kool! So many things happened and it was all packed into one week. So, let’s start at the beginning because… well, it’s just a good place to start.

Sunday morning we drove to the Rodatus’ house. Let me tell you, there was very little room in our van. I don’t know how we fit our dogs, all our camping stuff, and ourselves into our van but somehow we did. We got to the Rodatus’ house and headed out… on our way to Trout Run, PA!

Our drive there was uneventful but wait till you hear what happened when we got there! We arrived around 3:30 pm and, after checking in, we were going to head up to our cabin to unload. Well, it didn’t work out exactly as we had planned. First, we couldn’t find the driveway that led to our cabin (the Nature Den) and then before we even got to see it a storm hit. We had been warned that a bad storm was coming. But, I mean, in those mountains, storms hit insanely fast. We waited out the worst of the storm on the porch of the Susque Lodge. And then we ended up unloading in the pouring down rain. Fun, I know. lol! What made it worse was we couldn’t just drive up to the cabin. You had to go down a path to get to it. It wasn’t very long, but believe me; it seemed a lot longer in the rain. lol! There was a welcome cookout that night for all the campers so we went to that after we unpacked. Fortunately the rain had stopped. The first person I met that night was Danielle. After dinner, we had chapel. Chapel was kinda like church, except there weren’t as many people there. Then they did a bunch of announcements and things. After that, we went to the cabin and went to bed.

Monday morning we had chapel at 9:15. Chief Scott and Chief Danny were our worship leaders and Chief Bill taught the Bible lesson for the week. After chapel, they had a bunch of games for the youth while the parents gathered in Hemlock Hall to get acquainted. Then we had lunch, and then four hours of free time. At 1:30 they had sign ups for the activity classes. I signed up for pottery. After sign-ups, I met Christine. Christine is about a year older than me and we became fast friends.

Tuesday morning we had chapel again. And then right after chapel, I went to pottery with Christine. I met her sister Claire and her brother James at pottery and she pointed out her brother Andrew somewhere in the middle. lol! Her family was really nice. Anyway, at pottery we got a lump of clay! Sweet! lol! Chief Evan was our pottery teacher. He’s really fun. So, the first day we just played with that lump of clay and made it into things. We also picked out a mold to make. We poured a different kind of clay into the mold and let it dry during the rest of the class. It was pretty kool. Then we had lunch and free time again. By the way, we always got lunch and then free time in the afternoon. Then our family ate dinner at the cabin.

Then there was square dancing! Oh my goodness! That was SO much fun. Lots of people did square dancing for the easy session. Then the snack bar opened (it’s only open for thirty minutes each evening). After a seven minute break, there was another session of square dancing. It was harder. Christine and I wanted to dance…but we wanted ice cream too. A very BIG dilemma. lol! So…we asked Chief Bill how much time we had left before he was going to start. He said in about five minutes. So, Christine and I thought, and thought… for about ten seconds, and decided to try to go get ice cream and be back in time for the next session. Ready… Set… Go!!! We dashed across the field in between the pavilion and Hemlock Hall and found my dad. Then we got the money from him and raced down to the basement to get ice cream. There was a line so we asked Avery if he minded if we cut in front of him because we wanted to get back to the pavilion in time. He had no problem with that and he let us. We got our ice cream, paid for it, and dashed back across the field… all in about three and a half minutes! Then we ran into another problem. We couldn’t finish our ice cream in time so we had to decide, should we let it melt and go dance now or eat it and join in the dancing later? We decided to let it melt and went to dance. Christine and I were partners. We had as much fun laughing as we did dancing. Afterwards, we “drank” our ice cream. lol! Then it was bedtime.

Wednesday we had chapel in the morning. Then we had the second pottery class. We got to make more things out of lumps of clay, worked on the pottery wheel (which was really fun and messy), and got our clay out of the molds. Chief Evan said he’d put all the things into the kiln that night. Then we had lunch and free time. During free time, Christine and I went swimming in the pool with my dad, my brother Andrew, and her sister Claire. But before we went swimming, Christine and I went to try and find the Susque Duck. (The Susque Duck is really just a plastic duck with a hole in its back. It had a hole because someone had put fireworks in it and blew it up. lol! Traditionally the Susque Duck is hidden for campers to find and re-hide during camp week.) After two hours of searching under a really hot sun, we actually found it! It was hidden in a hollow stump in the woods. We saw its bill peaking up out of some leaves in the stump. We were so excited that we found it! After walking around camp with the duck for a while we finally realized that people were watching us, so we stashed it in Christine’s suitcase. Then we went swimming.

Later we got together with Josh, David, James, and Andrew to come up with a place to hide the duck. We were in Laurel Lodge talking when it started pouring down rain! I mean pouring! There was even a point when it started hailing a little bit. Well, Christine and I had to go. So, we dashed out of the lodge, ran over to Hemlock Hall to get our bikes, ran back across the field with our bikes, tried to avoid the insanely big puddles, and she finally got to her tent and me to my cabin. Wow! That was an adventure. I was completely soaked from the adventure. Then we had dinner. After dinner, my family went over to the Rodatus’ lodge and we watched “Joshua”. It was a really good movie.

Thursday we had chapel again. Then it was off to pottery again. We got to paint all of the things we made with either acrylic paint or glaze. We painted the whole time that day. It was fun. After lunch, Christine and I worked on the duck project that we had stopped the day before. We hid it and then we went swimming again. We loved to jump off the diving board. We worked on our front flips and our back dives. We also dove to the bottom to get the diving sticks we would throw in. That evening, there was a medieval banquet and tournament. The pavilion was transformed to look like a medieval banquet hall so that when I stepped into it, I could have sworn I stepped back in time…well, kinda. It was really kool. They had a few people from the dagorhir class battle each other to entertain the king while he was eating. They served chicken, grapes, carrot sticks, rolls, corn on the cob…and we had to eat it all with our fingers! The food was really good and the entertainment was kool! Then we hung out around Hemlock Hall till it was dark. Christine and I played soccer. Actually, we played soccer almost every evening. But anyway, we played soccer and then it was time to go get ready for bed.

Friday we had chapel. Then there was a special activity. It was actually a big game of Ultimate Simon Says. Chief Bill was really good at being Simon and could basically get anyone out whenever he wanted. Then we had lunch and free time. We went swimming again. Later, Andrew told me that he was the first one in the pool and the last one out of the pool. So he was in the pool for about three to four hours. Then there was dinner and then we had a family talent show/skit night. That was really fun. After that, there was a big closing campfire. Christine and I played volleyball in the dark also. Then it was time for bed.

Saturday morning we got up and packed most of our things. Then we went to chapel. During the whole week, Chief Bill taught on the objections that unbelievers might have to Christianity. After chapel, there was brunch and then we left. I slept almost the whole way home. lol! It was a really good week! I loved Camp Susque!!!

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