Things You're Not Excited About But I Am!

I had dinner with one of my favorite couples of all time tonight, Kendall and Art. Kendall and I have been best friends since senior year of high school when we bonded over a love of Anchorman among many other things. I finally met Art when Kendall had dinner with my main group of friends at Sho Gun before prom. We bonded over a love of making fun of Kendall. Since then, I have considered them my favorite couple and if you've spent any amount of time with them, you understand why!

Anyway, we were having dinner and I was talking about camp, naturally, since I leave tomorrow in the AM. Kendall likes to refer to my cult (or one of many since drill team in high school was definitely conidered a cult and I'm sure she'd refer to TCU as one, too, haha). The subject of the lack of telephones came up and Art immediately said, "CULT!" So I decided to blog about the things outsiders wouldn't love, but anyone from Mystic has grown to love and adore and count down the miliseconds to each year.

Sunset over Camp

1. No air conditioning. Yes, it's a pain in the rear, but there's nothing like walking into the Commissary during the hottest part of the day, or Byrd as a counselor on rest periods out.
2. Sharing a room with 15+ other girls.
3. Sharing a BATHROOM with 15+ other girls.
4. No cell phones. I tried to explain that even if we could have our cell phones, the service is so sotty that we'd never use them. However, I did promise to try and send picture of camp to them when I get there tomorrow - haha.
5. No television.
6. No internet. Not so much a big deal back in the day (the 90's, that is, not a Wednesday as Dane Cook would say).
7. Camp food. As I wrote yesterday, we have the most delicious camp food ever. We don't just have hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken nuggets, anything fried you can imagine every night. We have coffee cake in the morning, chef salad for lunch, steak for dinner, and Messy Face Cakes for dessert (more on those when I get home - don't worry).
8. No boys. Ok, this is so hard to imagine, but girls of all ages return ear after year to camp for a month at a time to the escape that is all girls camp. Yes, we have a dance with Camp Stewart, the boys' camp on the other side of Hunt, but there are 29 glorious days where girls don't have to worry about make up and flirting and everthing that comes with boys. I mean, sure we miss them, but the added drama is missing too.
9. War Canoe. No one really understands this. At all. Yes, we love to compare our massive bruises that take up the entiriy of the right or left sides of our bodies. We love the intense competition on Field Day and at Round Up. Even the counselors that were campers love it. Can we say CC War Canoe?

Intermediate War Canoe 2008

10. Hills. Walking up them. Walking down them. Wearing red shorts or blue shorts. Sitting around a fire. And I don't just mean tribe hils when I say hills. I mean the ones we see from our cabins every day. Chapel hill on Sundays. Every hill that adds to the beauty of camp.

Chapel Hill at Tonk Vespers 2008

Now, these are just a few things I'm excited about that outsiders may be afraid of or even not understand, but as someone who has gone back year after year and is returning for her 12th year, theres nothing like these 10 things. There's nothing like the countless other things I can't think of at the moment. There's nothing like the countless things I can think of but don't want to bore everyone. But I can say, "There's nothing like home."

Together Song Chorus Practice 2008