Wish Night

Love the mornings at High Rocks! The cool mountain air as the sun comes up and a warm cup of coffee is pure magic.  I get up early and go to bed late.  I try to enjoy a moment or two on the deck at least once or twice a week.  This morning was a good one! As I sipped my coffee with Barley (my dog) at my feet,  I watch the steam rise from the lake in the morning chill.  The quiet of the morning at camp is amazing! I always forget how much I like this moment. I need to do it more.

I can’t stay long as I have to prepare for our executive meeting that we have most mornings up at the dining hall.  Once I was sorted with my notes and answered a couple of early emails, I wandered up to the dining hall. The walk is also a wonderful part of my day.  After a few “good mornings” to our awesome kitchen crew, I made my way to make some small talk with Nate, our head chef as I watched the guys roll out the fresh-made biscuit dough on the table. Just then, the buzzer from the oven sounded. The first batch of biscuits just came out! I was so excited! As Rebekah slowly brushed them with butter, I watched in awe. She smiled and let me take one. Scratch-made biscuits and coffee! A nice way to start the day. Now I can settle into the day!

It was another sunny cool day at High Rocks! The boys were in all sorts of directions once again.  We had a morning High Rocks climb, two French Broad paddling trips, and a hiking trip out of camp today.  I was fortunate enough to take a few boys on the morning paddling trip today.  I really enjoy getting out to lead some trips occasionally, I get to connect with the kids.  It was awesome! We had so much fun and the boys did really well!

We all had some fun time with our age groups for evening program. As we wrapped up the individual events around 8:30, everyone headed over to our cabin field for a special “wish night” by the lake.

Breakfast: scratch-made buttermilk biscuits, sausage patties, scrambled eggs, grits, sausage gravy, assorted fruit, and assorted cereals.

Lunch: Pulled pork or chicken with or without the bun, baked beans, potato croquets, pickles, slaw, sauce, and two tossed salads.

Dinner: Breakfast for Dinner! French toast sticks, bacon, oatmeal, hard-boiled eggs, cut fruit, assorted cereals.

Tomorrow is LAUNCH DAY for our rocketry classes. Be sure to check out the pictures tomorrow for that. Then the transition begins. We will wrap up activities in the morning, and then begin the process of finding all our stuff and packing up during rest hour.  The rest of our afternoon will be a super fun all-camp color war event. Finally, we head back to shower, then enjoy our final banquet followed by the last campfire of the summer.

As a reminder, closing day is on Saturday.  Please come during your pre-arranged pick-up time.  If you still need to talk to Darby about shipping your trunk home, let us know and check back on the blog post from Monday for details.

I will put up a short post tomorrow night with some final pictures of the session.  I look forward to a quick hello on closing day, Saturday! Safe travels.

All the best,

Don Gentle

Today’s Pictures

Quick note… There are still some pictures pushing up at 7 am on Friday morning due to some server issues.