Loving Every Minute
July 7, 2015 by Dan Noland
A day that starts in the upper 50s is hard to argue with, especially when the rising sun lifts the mist off the lake and a bit of a breeze scatters it through camp as we wake up. A flurry of bed making and cabin cleaning comes next, then up to the Dining Hall for a rib-sticking breakfast of French toast sticks, bacon, boiled eggs, oatmeal, boxed cereal and fresh fruit. It’s amazing to see just how many orange slices, clusters of grapes and bananas go onto the trays (and it’s astounding to see how many ways some of the younger guys can think to apply maple syrup).
Speaking of food, I want y’all to know that we have a good-natured policy of requesting that everybody “Take your greens” at lunch and supper. A few guys tease fractional leaves of lettuce from the salad bar, but most make a heaping salad, and nobody complains! One of the measures of how successfully community builds here is precisely that cheerful sense of shared experience. Who knows, you might need to stock more greens come the end of the month.
Even before breakfast, the climbers left for a day-long climb at the Nose of Looking Glass Rock, in Pisgah, and when they got back this afternoon, they were all tired smiles. “Hot and dry: just the way we like is” was Chris Dorrity’s synopsis. After breakfast, the advanced mountain bikers took off for Jackson Park, in Hendersonville, where they rode on a series of difficult, man-made elements not available anywhere else in the area. They, too, returned satisfied but sweaty. The heat of mid-day lead many to glance longingly at the cool lake, and both free times resounded with splashy happiness.
The paddlers had no trouble with heat as they spent the day on the lower Green River, and the swimmers left camp for an afternoon at Hooker Falls, in DuPont State Forest, as many of you know a spot made famous in “The Last of the Mohicans.”
For the youngest campers, those in Foxhollow and Flattop, the evening was coolest, both literally and figuratively, since they went for a post-supper trip to Sliding Rock, one of the most popular activities in Pisgah, in part because of the very chilly water, and they finished off the day with ice cream of their choice at Dolly’s.
What a day, and what a wonderful night’s sleep is now settling on us.
May one find you as well.
Dan