Audrey spent the whole week at Girls' Camp, but I was there only for Monday and Tuesday with the fourth-year-girls on a special adventure while the younger girls went through camp set-up and orientation events. We took the girls canoeing on a brown-water river where they learned how to steer a canoe. Some of them learned how to make a canoe tip over (I personally taught that skill by example) and how to right a canoe.
Later, we set up tents and built fires. We tent-camped by a small lake that is overgrown with small lilies and is the home to a small five foot 'gator. It was not the 'gator nor the panther that worried me, but the 'skeetos. We were quite fortunate to have a storm blow past (without raining on us) that cleared the bugs outta our area, so we spent the evening without the resident pests.
We roasted hot dogs, baked potatoes, and made s'mores. The next morning we had strangled eggs from a dutch-oven. By noon on the second day our 4th-year girls joined the others back at the main camp, where we found Belle heavily into a game of charades.
Below are some highlight pictures that I have included. At the bottom I have included a link to all the pictures in smugmug.
We had about 15 girls, altogether, in the 4th-year group.
We rented a 15 passenger van and I got to enjoy driving the "big bus."
We stopped for lunch on the Loxahatchee River.
ALMOST everybody got into the selfie.
Steering a canoe is not always as easy as you might think. :)
Audrey spotted a turtle on a log (just past her right shoulder).
The girls likes swimming at the canoe launch site.
Out on the river we spotted a fairly large 'gator -- it submerged just before I clicked the picture.
The lakeside campsite was very pretty and spacious.
Baked potatoes were a great treat by the end of that day.
Strangled eggs in the morning made for a perfect hot breakfast,
and the girls saw just one of the many uses of a dutch oven.
