June 24 - Lisa's Musings (on camp) and Every Day Life

When I was a kid, I wasn't a very good camper.

I went to girl scout camp, which included learning how to tie knots, sleeping in a tent, singing around a campfire, telling ghost stories and roasting marshmallows.

I couldn't wait to get home.

Although marshmallows do taste better when on the end of a stick and turned over a fire, that was about the only thing I liked about camp life.

Even as a youngster, I enjoyed my heat and air conditioning and sleeping with walls separating me from nature.

Then there was an equestrian camp taught by some big name trainers. And even though they were very prestigious horse people, I didn't like them much.

I hated living in a cabin for a week with a bunch of kids I didn't know. And although there were no tents at horse camp, it was still pretty awful. As an only child, I was used to having my own room and lots of time alone. At camp, I literally had to escape into the forest to have any time to myself.

After spending a lot of money to send me to this camp, I finally convinced my parents that I wasn't a very good camper and there was no point spending a small fortune to send me somewhere that wasn't much fun.

Many, many years later, my friend Becca and I decided it would be fun to go to dog camp. At night, we slept in a pretty nice hotel, and during the day our dogs got to play in a whole bunch of different kinds of performance events.

The problem was, for the most part, the people running the camp knew less than we did about the performance disciplines they were teaching. So, with a few exceptions, we didn't learn a whole lot. And we weren't very good joiners at night when all the campers got together to play games and do whatever adult campers do.

We headed elsewhere for dinner and drinks and pretty much stuck to ourselves. En route home we vowed to never go to camp again.

But with the kids out of school, I've been going to different camps to do stories. So far, I've been to a little kid's camp where they learn about the Huron River and cool river stuff.

Today, I went to Cloverbud 4-H Camp where the kids have planted flowers, made necklaces out of cereal, tie-dyed T-shirts, made picture frames -- the list goes on. Plus, they've tasted tropical fruit, learned weather and electrical safety precautions as well as first aid.

These are cool camps. Day camps. Camps that weren't around when I was a kid.

And I'm enjoying experiencing them vicariously.

I've always been a pretty good non-camper.