Camp Blog

Out of the bus window, you see towering trails of twisted metal rising high into the misty morning sky near Richmond, Va. Occasionally a small cart flies through the air, looking like it is just barely attached to the massive steel sculpture underneath.  There are screams audible from the parking lot as yet another cart flies through the sky on a giant loop.

These structures are known by menacing names like The Dominator, The Intimidator, the Flight of Fear and the Anaconda. There is a volcano with tracks coming out of it and another beast known as the Shockwave.

This, as CTT found out yesterday, is King’s Dominion.

But I think I may have been the only person worried about these scary machines (for the record, everytime I try to get on a roller coaster I see a grim reaper waiting for me in the line). The campers of CTT certainly didn’t. They spent most of the day intimidating The Intimidator, dominating the Dominator, sending the Flight of Fear into a flight of, well, fear.

Small children like A-Tom hopped on every coaster they could and some people, like Corinne Polk-Trauman, rode their first coasters. Sydney Alloy and Sammie Cooper rode KD’s newest attraction, The Intimidator, twice in a row. Alejandra got over her deep fear of roller coasters and hit some of the biggest rides in the park.

The older campers, guys like Ethan Ebinger, Alex Fang and AJ Roshfeld hung together and had a good day enjoying their last trip to KD as campers. It was a grueling day, but we got lucky and it stayed cool and overcast for most of the day and we didn’t see any rain until the end.

It was good for all of us to break the normal routine and spend some time with some members of our camp family we don’t get to see all that often. There is still a lot of stuff to do this session; there is a Super Bowl (Red Bulls vs. Orange Crush), the World Series (Red Sox vs. Blue Wilds) and that color thing. But despite all that, the end gets closer and closer.

We will all hate for that to come, but yesterday’s trip shows that we can and will enjoy every moment until it does come. So bring it on, we’ll enjoy it.

Once again, a CTT activity has been interrupted by rude visitors. First there were the Gladiators, then the evil villains. Last night after each team had completed the counselor hunt, a horde of ghosts whooshed in and dragged the whole group of counselors and campers from their activity and off to meet Judge Mookie.

It was the beloved camp tradition known as Ghost Court, and some campers and counselors had to go before the judge and receive punishments! They were hilarious, as usual, and the aftermath of Judge Mookie’s rampage is evident all over the camp today.

The punishments began this morning when the boys in the BV and cabin 3 had to hug each other and sing the ‘I Love You’ song from Barney in front of everyone at breakfast.

Keep in mind this was only the regular BV boys, not the extra ones provided by Judge Mookie. The male CIT 2s, Ethan Ebinger, AJ Roshfeld and Alex Fang, all act like counselors so the Honorable Sir Mook banished them back to the Buffalo Village for the day. They, along with the rest of their fellow tent campers, must carry trash bags around all day and pick up trash because they are very dirty kids.

The young ladies in cabin A were deemed too energetic, and in order to rid them of excess energy they must skip to every activity today. Cabin B got it too, but because they (along with their counselor Julie) are huge fans of Glee, they must sing all of their words during free swims and meals (I, for one, am searching out the Cooper sisters during second free swim).

Also around camp, Georgia Oriol had to make PB&J sandwiches for everyone who wanted one during the first ten minutes of lunch, Alvaro is Harry Potter for the day, Joan and Juan have to hold the door for everyone at each meal today and all of the foreigners have to end every sentence with ‘but I love America’ because they always speak in their native languages.

The day after Ghost Court is great. I wish I could write more, but I have to go pester Alejandra to read me her life story and pelt water balloons at Tyler Maizels and Sydney Alloy. Bye!

You may remember a few days ago when a bunch of gladiators interrupted our Saturday service? Well, it happened again this week.

Except this time, instead of gladiators, a group of villains robbed some innocent bystanders! The villains, who looked strangely like counselors Tiz and Collin, were quickly thwarted by a pair of superheroes (Bill and Jason). The heroes informed the crowd that it was Superhero Day, but then the villains struck back! They scared off the superheroes with water guns and declared it Global Domination Day! The camp was split into teams and, like every Saturday, the team switched into their colors and the events began!

The day began with a game of four-way dodgeball, a penny dive and an arms race. The arms race consisted of a group of games where the competitors use only their arms, such as a strength endurance test, an arm wrestling competition and unraveling a human knot.

Each team was also tasked with building their own city and destroying the other teams. The red team, led by Mighty Bill Young, won the city competition and led most of the day until the skit portion. It was there that the yellow team, the wards of counselor Mark and Ethan Ebinger, unveiled their evil plan to blow up BP oil rigs on the East coast. The U.S. government probably wouldn’t be pleased with their plan, but the judges were and at the end of the day it was announced that the yellow team had won!

So this Saturday we learned that services will almost always be rudely interrupted, the cause of the BP oil spill and that Ethan Ebinger is the guy you want on your team on a Saturday (he was also a part of the winning green team from Gladiator Day).

It’s hard to believe there is only one week left in this session. It has flown by so quickly, but there is still a lot of cool stuff to do this week. We are going to King’s Dominion, there is a counselor hunt and presumably there is something big going on towards the end of the week. It’s that thing I mentioned the other day, with all of the yelling, intensity and color. I just can’t remember the name. Clash of the Colors, maybe?