It sure was a wonderful morning to welcome in all our July campers! We are so excited for all our Mini I boys who have just joined the High Rocks family! I know many of you are here for the first time. What a great session to step into for your first year! The four-week boys will be a big part of your son’s experience and they will certainly help show them the way. While the Mini I guys will move about in their own way during the evening program, they will be part of the same experience that the four-week boys are also experiencing. My hope is that these minis will also be month-long campers someday.
As the arrivals trickled down to just a few remaining campers who were flying, it was time to get up to lunch. The first meal was a solid staple of chicken fingers, fruit, and several salad bar items. A good simple meal to keep it safe on opening day.
Just as I had hoped and experienced many times in the past, these boys picked up right where they left off just 48 weeks ago. It was like camp just let out yesterday. All the joys, wonders, and friendships were re-kindled just like a campfire. As I grow older in this world of High Rocks it has become one of my favorite experiences. Boys are funny, though. While many of these guys have come back year after year, you can still tell there is a nervous and excitable moment for them every opening day. Many, but not all, are not completely in touch with these feelings. I hear it all the time how worm out these boys are by lunchtime. I must remind them that opening day morning is always a big deal. And whether they realize it or not, they have burned a lot of nervous energy by lunch. The beauty is that the nervousness fades and the fun begins. The activities begin, the cool cards go out the door, and a new summer at High Rocks has begun!
We quickly busied ourselves with some activity rotations to find out what opportunities lurk out there in High Rocks land. We also use the opportunity to learn some basic skills and check-offs. We had all picked our schedules y the time dinner came around and we were ready to feast! Dinner is another opening day favorite with pasta, scratch-made meat, marinara, pesto, and Alfredo sauce paired with garlic bread and scratch-made chocolate chip cookies. Add a salad bar full of all sorts of wonderful veggies, greens, and cheeses and you have one solid opening day.
While I did not get to see everyone, it was a pleasure seeing so many returning faces as well as all the new families today. We’re looking forward to a great session.
We will send out an email to you about your sons’ schedules around lunchtime tomorrow. You can also find his up-to-date schedule on my.higrocks.com along with trips he has taken during the session. We ask the boys to choose five different activities. They can change just about any time they like, and they always get into the activities they want. Again, look for an email and update around lunchtime tomorrow.
After some great evening activity field games, we all headed back to the cabins for some showers and a wrap-up to the day. Each cabin had a small cabin meeting to go over some ground rules and highlights to finish up the day just as the lights out bell was ringing.
One of the crazy things we do with cabin placement is that there is almost never more than two boys from the same school in a cabin. We want these boys to make friends at camp rather than bring their whole school up here. It makes registration crazy, but it makes important steps in building friends from around the US and beyond.
Image Gallery
Below tonight’s blog is the link to the High Rocks Gallery. You will notice that our website and picture gallery is very user-friendly on almost any device, including mobile and tablet devices. To get all the details and features like image download, and navigation; please check out the notes and details here at Gallery Help and Highlights. This gallery is password protected. If you are new to the gallery, you should have received an automated email today with details for your login (check your spam folder). If you are a returning family, use the email address that you received in the opening day email. Your password is the same as last year. If you cannot remember, just use the “forgot password” link to retrieve a new one.
It may make sense to save the link and log in to your browser for quick access. I will try my best to get the blog up by 9:30 pm each night, but sometimes camp does get in the way, or our rural internet has been quite slow (or even slower). Don’t fret! We will get you the pictures as soon as we can! We are likely to push up some pictures throughout the day (usually after rest hour), but they will continue to go up until the blog is live. Once the blog is up, it typically means that pictures are up for the day.
Don’t forget to follow us on social media. We will make it worth your while by putting up a couple of extra pictures and a special video from time to time during the day. Facebook: Camp High Rocks, and on Instagram. Feel free to throw up some of these great pictures to share on your feed. We like making High Rocks look good!
If you are interested in the high-resolution download, you can still order that for the session. Just hit up Darby at [email protected]. She can just put it on your store account. It is $45.00 plus tax ($48.04 to be exact). If you have pre-ordered a download subscription, Darby has not updated those yet, but she will have those updated tomorrow.
It is an honor and a privilege to host your son here at High Rocks. We will do our best to give him the best possible experience summer camp has to offer. If you ever need anything, please reach out. It is going to be an amazing three weeks!
-Don Gentle
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