Summer Dancing
Today started out with unusually cool weather accompanied by a very slight drizzle off and on. Given the warmer, more ordinary summertime heat we’ve been experiencing lately, it was a nice change for camp. And that drizzle sure didn’t slow us down any! We were happily enjoying all of our regular activities. The drama class, which usually meets inside the Junior lodge, was playing a funny improv game called “Bus Stop.” Using just a couple of props, the girls take turns creating a bus stop scene with some crazy, unexpected character waiting for the bus. As the scene unfolds, the goal is to guess who the mystery character is in the scene. Inevitably, the game includes actors and audience members cracking up.
Down in the Lakeview Lodge, the Middler and Senior dance classes were rocking out practicing routines for the end of camp dance show. Led by the “two Lindseys” (Both dance counselors are named Lindsey this session), there are some technical moves in the choreography, making practice pretty important. The Junior classes spend more time playing games— Freeze Dance!! —and learning more basic dance moves.
Down at the riflery range the girls are really improving their skills. It seems like everyday at lunch, Leah and Molly the riflery instructors are announcing new girls who shot bullseyes. There’s been so much shooting down there, Richie had to replace the target hangers because they were completely shot up! It will be interesting to see the giant pile of shells leftover at the end of the summer.
For lunch today, Rick made us a Mediterranean feast with homemade hummus, freshly fried falafel, toasted pita bread, olives, feta cheese, tomato and cucumber salad. I heard several comments about the hummus being “really good,” probably because it had just the right amount of lemon and salt. There was some action at the peanut butter and jelly station and salad bars too, but not as much as you might think. For dinner, Rick and Alison teamed up for a special dessert: ice cream cake. They took some of the leftover, un-frosted birthday cake and layered in slabs of ice cream and even more chocolate cake. Chocolate frosting and a little icing decoration was added to make these works of art! When it was all over, not a crumb was left.
Tonight was also a dance night for the whole camp, this time with the boys up at High Rocks. It was quite an operation to get all 220 campers up the mountain (two shuttles using all of our vehicles, plus some borrowed from High Rocks), but we all made the trek to enjoy a square dance out on their 3 tennis courts. After the girls got over some initial jitters, they were soon having a surprising (to them at least!) amount of fun. It’s all very lighthearted and silly, with part of the fun being learning the moves, but also messing up by turning the wrong way or grabbing the wrong hand. After a short break for cookies and lemonade, we were back to the dancing— winding the clock, trapping a birdie in the cage, and lots of partners being swung. On the ride home several senior girls commented that they enjoyed the square dance even more than the “pop dance” we had last week. I’m not too surprised, but happy to hear another example of camp providing a new, and surprisingly enjoyable experience for our girls.
Special Event Visitors
Our regular activities kept us busy most of today with plenty of crafts (ceramics!), sports (swimming!), horses (jumping!), and adventure (climbing!), but we also enjoyed two very special events. The first was a clinic of pocketdisc games and techniques. Our friend Patrick Groft, the inventor of the pocketdisc, came over from Hillsborough for the morning to host the sessions. You may have seen these cool discs at an outdoor store, but they are multicolored, croqueted cotton discs with a curled edge making them surprisingly aerodynamic and fun to throw like a Frisbee. They fly great and are super easy to catch, and because they’re soft, can safely be thrown both indoors and out. They are handmade in Guatemala and are a Fair Trade product, too. We liked them so much, we have teamed up with Patrick to have special Rockbrook editions of the pocketdisc made for our campers, but this morning it was about learning to throw the discs and playing some fun games that involve throwing and catching them. We played a couple of classic ball games with the pocketdiscs: dodgeball and spud, for example, but also some new ones like “Duck Hunting” and “Monkey in the Middle.” These are really fun toys, and we all had a blast running around, throwing the discs, catching them, and playing the games.
After dinner we had our second special event of the day, a dance with Camp Carolina in our gym. Local DJ Marcus (“DJ Dawg”) came over to handle the music and dance lighting for us. Marcus is always up on the latest pop music, but is also great at getting everyone dancing. For example, several times in his playlist, he pulled out “group dance” songs that included dancing instructions in the lyrics. “To the left, to the left… now kick, now kick,” etc. All of the CCB boys and their counselors came to us for this dance, so we had to be ready with extra of our homemade cookies and plenty of water to keep the sweaty dancers going. We had perhaps 300 people in the gym altogether! Most of the dancing was pretty silly, as was what most people were wearing, with our counselors leading the way. The idea we stress to the staff is to de-emphasize the “boy-girl” character of the event and to key on enjoying the music and the dancing. That’s partly why so many crazy costumes are part of the scene; it proves that what you look like isn’t important to have a good time. Even so, I have to admit, the oldest teenage girls spend a lot of time “getting ready” (hair!) and feeling a little nervous when the boys first arrive. As the girls tend to rove in a pack during the evening, it’s hard not to think of the old adage “safety in numbers.” Two hours of dancing and two hours of everyone having a good time, it just flew on by.
Here’s one last bonus picture. This is our vegetable garden down at the landsports field. Pam planted it a few weeks back and has been taking good care of i. It’s really taking off! She’s got heirloom tomato plants that are bushing out to 5 feet tall! There are beans, cucumbers, herbs and squash. Rick even used some of the squash tonight in the vegetarian stir fry he served. Once a week or so, as part of the twilight time, we’ll invite the campers to come down at check out the garden. Pam explains about the plants and encourages the girls to feel, smell and even taste some of them. It’s fun for them to see such a well tended garden and to have all their questions answered.
Zumba Night
Today was a return to regular activities after our celebration yesterday. Rockbrook girls of all ages were happily back building and glazing pottery, shooting arrows, bullets and basketballs, climbing our Alpine Tower and Castle Rock, riding horses, and making all kinds of arts and crafts. The giant beach ball saw some action and the tennis courts stayed busy. Every activity area, especially the lake, had a group of enthusiastic girls chatting and having fun.
Like most weekdays, we also offered an optional out-of-camp trip today. That’s how we do trips; they are announced in advance so girls can decide to go if they want to. Going on a trip means missing their scheduled activities while away, so considering a trip is a real exercise in choice, a concrete chance to learn that selecting one thing means neglecting another. Today Michelle guided a busload of girls on a hike up to the top of Looking Glass Rock for a picnic lunch. This is a gorgeous trail winding past tall trees, over exposed rock slabs, and through thick rhododendron groves. It’s about 3 miles of mostly up hill hiking, but ends with a huge payoff— a 180-degree overlook view of the mountains across a deep valley below. It did start to rain, even hard at times, on the way back, but the girls still had great fun hiking (downhill thankfully!) even when wet.
This seems to be tour season at Rockbrook because we’ve given several tours of camp everyday this week. Part of that is probably because families are traveling over the Fourth of July holiday, but they also have heard about Rockbrook from a friend and wanted to check it out. In a couple of cases, they were alumnae who wanted to introduce their daughter or granddaughter to Rockbrook It’s always great fun for us to show people around Rockbrook, to meet some of our counselors (“They’re all so nice!” one mom said), and to see camp full of life. There are lots of friendly faces and excited children to meet, and occasionally, with the right timing, a yummy, freshly baked muffin to eat!
Tonight’s optional twilight activity was a dance party of sorts down in the gym. Actually it was a “Zumba” workout session set to the pop music of Lady Gaga. Think aerobics, coordinated group movement, but with modern music and beats. Elizabeth, Austin and Frampton kept the whole crowd of girls moving as they taught the group different spins, jumps and kicks to go along with the music. It’s all very high energy and exhilarating. It might be surprising, but for excited girls, there’s nothing like a little heart-pounding exercise right after dinner. Plenty of girls chose to hang out instead of joining the Zumba party, with all the lines coming together for their evening programs. Skits, more dressing up, plenty of laughing and giggling, and a homemade cookie with milk before bed. Another real Rockbrook day.
Living at the Lake
That’s what we’ve been doing these days— really enjoying the Rockbrook lake. Even here in the mountains, the high temperatures have been knocking on 90 by the afternoon making everything at the lake all that more attractive. All day long, in fact, there have been campers and counselors splashing around, making up goofy jumps from the diving board, or just floating around on a tube. The kayakers have been happily getting wet as they practice their rolls, and the canoers, after paddling around a bit, didn’t hesitate to flip into the water. It’s great fun, by the way, to then try to stand up on the bottom of the canoe as it floats upside down. During the free swim periods, the water slide added even more excitement as girls climbed the 30-foot tower and slid (screaming!) down to plunge into the cool water. Classic summer fun!
Today was a day of regular, in-camp activities for everyone, but as I watched the girls confidently go from activity to activity, dash to the dining hall for meals after hearing the bell, check their mailboxes after lunch, and decide how to spend their free time, I thought about how great it is to see them being so independent. After this short week, this place is infused with focused energy, with self-directed ideas about what to do next, where to go and (easily) whom do be with. That’s really neat because it means the girls are making all these decisions on their own and learning to trust themselves as they navigate all the options. Of course, around every corner we’ve got caring adults trained to guide and encourage this kind of independence, and the choices available (the activities, people, and general environment) are carefully selected to be safe and positive, but all of this makes camp a perfect place for girls to grow more self-confident and independent. It’s clear here at camp, and I suspect you’ll notice it back at home too.
Today for lunch our awesome kitchen crew, led by Eulogia, hit a home run. It was a taco fiesta with fresh, secretly spiced, ground beef, black beans, Mexican rice, diced tomatoes, homemade guacamole, cheese and salsa. Each table had a plate of taco shells and bowls with all the different ingredients. And the shells kept on coming. One camper yelled proudly, “this is my eighth one!” The peanut butter and jelly station and the salad bars saw some action, but not much really.
The evening program tonight was the return of a special all-camp event hosted by our old friend Bill Grimsley, Game Show Mania. Using his podiums and scoring system, Bill put on a funny question and answer game that involved groups of campers, but also kept the whole audience involved in the show. After randomly selecting contestants, who then represented their cabins, he played sound bites and asked questions about pop music, movies and TV shows, but also about Rockbrook trivia. Bill was particularly good at making sure all of the contestants scored some points, not leaving anyone out. Prizes, like a giant red, white and blue cookie, went to cabin groups, and at times when the panelists were stumped and the audience knew an answer, the whole crowd was awarded a sweet treat. The audience of campers was really into the game, cheering on their friends. This was especially true during the staff round as the campers got to root for their favorite counselor and see them come up with some pretty funny answers. With costumes and silly antics part of the mix, it was even better.
Saturday Camp
Today began with all the campers following their second set of activities, with every area of camp humming along. For example, one of the arts and crafts activities is called “Painting and Drawing” and today they headed out to the hill for their activity. The project was to use water colors to paint the mountain view seen from under the big walnut tree. This photo shows a little of it— sitting in the shade of the tree, chatting with friends, and enjoying the view while painting. It’s another of those special experiences that is part of camp.
Before lunch, the equestrian staff planned a fun event for the girls that involved dressing up a few of the ponies like pop singers. I heard there was Katy Perry, Lady GaGa and Taylor Swift, for example. Dressing the ponies involved doing up their manes and tails with ribbons and braids, and to complete their “outfits” a couple also got to sport glitter and lipstick! This is a picture of Cloud Nine getting his treatment. Then for the game, the campers divided into groups to play an air band song for each artist (horse!) while then danced along and even lip synced the song (by moving the horse’s lips). It was pretty hilarious and lots of fun for the girls.
The biggest surprise of the day however came after lunch when Sofie and Frampton announced the evening’s activity— dancing with the boys of Camp Carolina. The roar in the dining hall after the announcement was virtually deafening as the girls squealed with excitement. Sarah then explained that the Juniors and Middlers would stay here at Rockbrook because the similarly aged boys from Carolina would be coming to dance in our gym. At the same time, the Senior girls would load up in the buses and drive over to Camp Carolina for their dance. It was two simultaneous dances going on. Sarah also announced that there would be a “dance alternative” for those girls who might decide the dance was “not their thing.” As the alternative, there were about 12 or so girls who joined a couple of counselors in Curosty to learn a new friendship bracelet pattern. These dances are fun for the girls because everyone takes them lightheartedly, all the counselors are right in the mix too, dressing just as goofy, and there’s virtually no pressure about boys being around. They are mostly about just being silly, jumping around with friends, and enjoying the music. Pure excitement!
To Build a Fire and Stack Apples
Do you know how to build a fire? Well if your camper signed up for the activity we call “WHOA,” which stands for “Wilderness Hiking Outdoor Adventure,” there’s a good chance she’ll have learned to here at camp. The counselors talk about the importance of heat, fuel and oxygen. They demonstrate the importance of dry wood (having it pass the “snap test”), and they give plenty of examples of how to stack the wood to insure the smallest twigs light first and the heat generated will rise up and ignite the larger sticks. The girls pick up on it pretty quickly, and when there’s the prospect of roasting a marshmallow, they are surprisingly motivated. 
It has been such amazing weather these past few days! Cool in the mornings with a little fog early, and then warm but not too hot in the afternoon. We had one of those welcome afternoon thunder showers today, making everything moist and cool. With the creeks up again, Jessi decided to take a group of girls on a hike to Rockbrook Falls before lunch. This is the largest waterfall on the Rockbrook property, and is formed as Dunn’s Creek cascades down below Dunn’s Rock. You can see it on the camp map. The girls first hike the trail to the creek, but then make their way upstream by hopping from rock to rock, back and forth across the falling water. The falls are a good ways up and really beautiful to see.
OK, if not fire building, what about stacking 4 apples in a column? Juggling feathers? Eating an oreo cookie without using your hands, and that happens to be placed on your forehead (!)? These are just some of the games we all played after lunch in our all-camp “Minute to Win It” game. Starting with each age group in their lodge, each cabin dressed as a team and competed in several different crazy relay races. Ordinary items like golf balls and boxes of tissues became props for physical challenges. It was wonderful to see how much fun we could have, how hard we could laugh, trying to do these tasks. Even those of us watching, get a kick, for example, out of seeing someone being wrapped up in toilet paper! It was good camp fun, being with friends and enjoying silly games you wouldn’t likely do at home.
After dinner was a highlight of the session for many of the girls, for the senior girls in particular— the dance with Camp Carolina. We held two simultaneous dances with our Seniors going to Camp Carolina and their Middler and Junior boys coming to Rockbrook. Splitting like this made the dances less crowded and allowed us to tailor the music for each age group. The showers at camp got a real workout before the dance, and all 200 hair brushes got used as well. It’s quite a phenomenon! Overall, the whole affair was lighthearted and fun. Tonight the counselors dressed up like traffic crossing guards, and we saw more camp tie dye t-shirts than anything else. Group dancing is mostly the name of the game so everyone can be included. As you might guess, the girls stick together— safety in numbers!
It was a little late for us, but what a night to wrap up another great day in the “heart of a wooded mountain.”
Big Busy Thursday
Today was another big busy day at Rockbrook as the campers began their second set of activity choices, trips went out of camp in several directions, and we enjoyed all-camp special events. Down in the Lakeview Lodge, which this session is the meeting lodge for the Middlers, the dance classes were swinging. All three of our historic (built in the 20s) stone lodges have wooden floors, a big fireplace, and windows wrapping around, and the Lakeview Lodge has mirrors on the wall of one end making it a really cool dance studio. The dance classes always have several things going on, usually a new move or dance step to learn, a group choreographed dance to work on, and a silly game like “Freeze Dance” to keep things lighthearted. It’s a good balance of action, coordination, concentration, musical rhythm and goofball fun, and the girls really enjoy it.
We’ve been having lots of families visiting camp this week, having guided tours, in anticipation of next summer (already!). We always encourage new families and their girls who are interested in Rockbrook to visit camp, and for some reason this has been a big week for that. Getting a firsthand sense of the place— just how friendly and relaxed the people are here, for example —is a welcome spot of reassurance that may not come through from just reading our catalog. It’s so great to meet these new families and to hear their stories about how they’ve found out about RBC.
In gymnastics, Elaine our head instructor is working with the girls and teaching them a few moves on the mini trampoline. She sets up the tramp at the end of the carpeted runway and positions landing pads all around. Then, with a couple of counselors spotting, the girls run down, plant both feet firmly on the tramp and jump up and onto the landing pads. Starting off with a good solid jump, they can advance to doing tucks, splits, pikes and even flips in the air. Over on the Alpine, they’re doing a different sort of trick— climbing blindfolded! It’s one of the new challenges over there; after climbing all 50 feet of the tower, up one of the many different routes, the girls can elect to climb again without being able to see. They get plenty of help from their friends on the ground shouting out instructions (“A little higher with your left foot!”), so they do quite well, sometimes climbing even more confidently than without a blindfold.
Clyde and Kelsey signed up a group of girls to go whitewater kayaking on the Tuckaseegee River all day. This is an intermediate river suitable for kayakers who are comfortable in their boats and who have previous whitewater experience. It has several excellent rapids and offers great opportunities to practice catching eddies and ferrying. It is a dam control river, and the water was up nicely, making it a fantastic trip. By the way, “Tuckaseegee” is a Cherokee word meaning “place or river of the turtle,” and sure enough, we just about always see turtles in the river over there.
For our evening program tonight, our friend Gary Greene, who is a wonderful storyteller, singer and musician, came over for an all-camp campfire. He brought his guitar to teach us a few songs, and of course presented several stories for us to enjoy. He’s really talented and quick to involve the campers in his performance, animating different parts of the poem “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll, for example. This was also a chance for some of the counselors to get in on the act. Grace and Gracie transformed themselves into gypsies, acting as occasional story and joke tellers throughout the evening. They had all of us cracking up with their flamboyant accents and witty vignettes.
One last thing… If you haven’t heard the news about Malia Obama, the President’s daughter, attending summer camp, here is an article discussing it. It’s a very nice article, well worth reading, because it affirms the benefits of camp for all children.
A Full Day of Camp Activities
It’s the Hi-Ups who started the first full day of camp today by ringing the rising bell at 8am sharp. This gives all the campers 30 minutes to get dressed, clean their cabin a bit, and make it to the dining hall for breakfast, which today was oatmeal with all the fixings (e.g., toppings of brown sugar, walnuts, blueberries, and dried cranberries), sliced South Carolina peaches, and orange juice, along with our usual fruit, yogurt and cereal bar. After a few brief announcements and a quick stop at the Infirmary if they take daily morning medicine or vitamins, the girls were off and running to their first period activities. This is quite a sight with small groups of girls heading out in different directions, some dressed for horseback riding in long pants and boots, others in bathing suits ready to work on kayaking at the lake, and others with water bottles preparing to go on a hike out to Rockbrook Falls. There was a group of Middlers meeting at Hiker’s Rock to go rock climbing on Castle Rock with Katherine and Tara, a group of Seniors learning how to knit, and a group of Juniors headed down to riflery for their first experience shooting a real gun.
Between first and second period we have our “muffin break,” a time when everyone (literally at times!) runs to the dining hall porch to have one of Liz’s freshly baked muffins. It’s the talk of the camp to find out what flavor muffin Liz (the camp baker) has made that day. Today’s? Sugar Spice, and they were awesome! We all look forward to the surprise of muffin break each day.
Also this morning, the CA girls and their counselors went hiking with Jeff to John Rock in the Pisgah Forest. In addition to reaching the summit of the rock, there was a second goal to achieve— picking the secret theme for this session’s banquet, the big party the CA girls plan for the whole camp. It’s a big deal to pick the theme because it affects the food served, the music, decorations, costumes, skits, and dance numbers that might be included. The CAs work all session preparing for the banquet, so having everyone excited and invested in the theme is crucial. When we reached the top of the rock, and were enjoying the amazing view of Looking Glass Rock from up there, the theme was set. You’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to find out what it is! 
The weather helped this afternoon by providing a nice cooling rain shower just at the start of rest hour. Rest hour is just that, an hour after lunch when everyone heads back to their cabins to rest. This might mean just reading in your bunk, or writing letters home, but for a surprising number of campers (and counselors!) it’s a chance to take a real nap. It’s really wonderful, and you might think that there would be complaining about having to take this time out, but the girls really do look forward to it… maybe because we stay so active at camp.
More dancing, swimming and making things (really cool pottery vases, for example) completed the afternoon camp activities, and cabin skits got everyone laughing down each Line’s evening program. It really was a full day at camp today. Be sure to check the photo gallery. We’ve got new stuff up there everyday.
