Mystery Camp Out

Months of planning, dozens of phone calls, hundreds of emails, two trips to camp to deliver food and craft supplies and 120 Girl Scouts all collided at Timberlane this past weekend for our big once-a-year camp out. This is an event I organize for all the troops in the our city to attend. This year I had nine troops come out claiming every available bed and almost taking the dining hall to capacity. A huge leap in attendance over last year.

And I did it all myself!

Okay, no I didn't.

This year I had a quite a crew behind me that took over almost every detail leaving me in the end with the registrations, assigning cabins, providing training and programing for all our teenage Scouts (There were 42 of them this year!), coming up with the schedule for the weekend, hiring the cook and shopping for one meal.

That might sound like a lot, but in the grand scheme of the weekend, it's a drop in the bucket. I had one leader plan all of the program stations (27 of them!) and shop for all of the supplies. Another leader planned our one "nice" craft and hand made all of the insanely cute name tags. One leader and her troop made dinner for everyone Friday night. Another leader and her troop made a huge brunch for everyone Saturday morning. Co-Leader Supreme personally found the program we ran, picked out the fun patch, ran archery, opened the observatory, set up a killer clever trail with her younger troop and tried to keep me in line all weekend. (No easy task there.)

The weather tried to ruin it all. It was cold and it never, ever stopped drizzling. Just this steady, light, freezing drizzle the entire time we were there. We had to cancel boating. Nobody wanted to go to archery. We had our campfire inside the dining hall. It sucked the energy out of everybody ending the day around 9 PM instead of 11.

But everyone says that they had a wonderful time and that their girls had a super-fun-amazing experience. That makes it a success.

And I forgot to take my camera, obviously.