Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off To Camp We Go (AGAIN)!

Jourdan came home from High Adventure, unloaded his smelly backpack, washed his clothes, and packed for two weeks at Camp Meriwether.  He got his first opportunity to be a SIT (Staffer in Training) at his favorite BSA camp.  Meriwether is just south of Tillamook, Oregon on the coast. It's not only Joudan's favorite camp (and why not with views like the one below), but it's apparently on the top 5 list of BSA camps in all the US.  (He says that Scouting Magazine was there while he was at camp - they're doing a story on their top camps.) 

 He did not come home over the weekends - he stayed and enjoyed being an unsupervised teenager at the beach.  His fellow staffers took him into town for pizza and a movie his first weekend at camp. Here's the whole staff of Camp Meriwether:

 

 He called that weekend and told us that he'd like to stay at camp until the end of the last session.  (Good thing that was only one more week than we had already anticipated.)  Clearly, although we missed him, he didn't miss us too much....he'd rather be at camp.  So, after a week of High Adventure on Mt. Hood, he spent 3 weeks teaching Environmental Science, Plant Science, and Game Design.  Anyone who knows Jourdan well, knows that the first two classes are perfectly suited for his knowledge and skill.  (And, I don't have any pictures of that because *I* wasn't there to take them...so, there!) 

He spent his time in the Mt. Jefferson cabin:

 It was hard to leave my kid at camp, when I knew THIS is how he was living: 

Well, maybe not so much him....but his bunkmates.  It's obvious that room inspections don't happen enough there - there's NO mommy to pick up after these teen/young adult boys.  I never quite fully understood how messy they were without proper supervision.  When we arrived, there were at least 12 empty pop cans on the floor, garbage, food wrappers....a little scare from a bear in camp got them to clean up the food mess anyway.

 

We stopped by to visit on Sunday, August 11 on our way to take Julia to her week-long camp on the Southern Oregon Coast.  Basically, Jonathan and I spent all day in the car that day.  First driving to Tillamook, visiting Jourdan for an hour, drove the coast highway all the way to Florence on the southern part of the coast, dropped Julia off at Camp Cleowox for Girl Scouts, and drove back home through Eugene and Salem.  (Needless to say, I was completely car sick after that trip!)

 

Julia got to spend a week at a camp called "Sculpt It!", where they focused on pottery.  (Sad note, all the pottery was destroyed in an accident in the kiln....she's still getting over it.)

 This is Julia's cabin (it's being cleaned, so the mattresses are all off the bunks):

 We picked Julia up on Friday the 16th (again on the Southern Oregon Coast) and drove back to the coast on Saturday morning to retrieve Jourdan from his 3 week experience.  My favorite part of picking Jourdan up from Meriwether over the years (besides the trip to the Tillamook Creamery to get a malt) is watching the closing flag ceremony. This is the first year that Jourdan has been able to be part of the staff, so it was his first opportunity to stand on the hill for the ceremony and to sing in all the songs as the campers leave. In case it's hard to tell...Jourdan is the first one from the left facing toward the camera. (Not unlike the military, they all look alike in uniform.)

(For Grandpa:  Here's some videos of the closing ceremonies)  This is the closing flag ceremony:

 

 After the flag ceremony is completed, the staffers run down the hill singing the Traditional"Camp Meriwether" Song.  I don't know where Jourdan is in this mob of boys, but he's in there somewhere.

Then, the staffers all gather at the driveway to the camp exit.  They sing all kinds of songs (some traditional camp songs, some pop songs, some classic rock, and even "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers.  It's one of Jourdan's favorite things about camp.  It's fun to see them singing all together...even though it's not with the kind of quality Jourdan is used to.

 

 And....well, I don't know what this song is, but it's fun to watch them gather together, huddle up, and form a circle for their formal de-briefing after a week of camp.  Jourdan says all this singing and ceremonial stuff is done every week, but this was the very last of the camp weeks, so the boys all have very tired voices.  A few were really sad to see the summer come to an end.  (Perhaps that's because once the campers left, they had the unpleasant job of cleaning up camp and getting it prepped for the winter season on the coast -a time consuming job to say the least!)