Author Archives: Jeff Carter

“It’s Banquet day!” “Ya’ll, I can’t believe it’s almost time for Banquet.” “I’m so excited for Banquet!” These and other remarks of excited anticipation are what you hear around camp leading up to the special event we call Banquet. It’s the biggest celebration of the whole session, essentially an all-camp party held in the dining hall filled with almost constant singing and dancing, laughing, and a sort of unmatched exuberance and emotion that’s hard to describe.

It’s the culmination of what began on the first day of camp when our CA 9th graders selected a secret theme for the party. They plan and present the entire party, designing the decorations, selecting the dinner menu, and dressing up in costumes to complete the experience. Part of the excitement is revealing their theme to everyone else. Tonight’s banquet was “Under the RB..Sea,” a colorful transformation of the dining hall into an underwater wonderland.

The girls outdid themselves with the decorations. There were hand-painted murals showcasing vibrant coral reefs, majestic sea creatures like jellyfish and starfish, and all sorts of colorful fish. There was a sunken treasure chest, a scuba diver, a mermaid, a lobster, a ship’s anchor and even a surfboard. They covered all of the tables with blue plastic tablecloths, and more transluscent blue material in the rafters to look like waves of water. In a few places there were fishing nets hung, with inflated fish and dolphins. Sparkly lights added to the festive feel of it all.

For costumes, a few CAs dressed as mermaids with shimmery skirts. Three were grey, silver sharks. We saw the Nickelodeon character SpongeBob Squarepants and his friend Patrick Star, both of whom live under the sea. We were also excited to have Dory and Nemo play roles. One CA dressed up as a jellyfish using an umbrella and streamers to take on the right shape. Even the counselors got in on the act dressing up as snorkelers complete with masks and fins!

The food was classic banquet fare with clever aquatic names: Sea sponges for an appetizer (mozzarella sticks), Seashell pasta and green coral (tortellini and steamed broccoli) for the main, with tropical fruit kababs on the side. And for dessert, there was an amazing blue vanilla pudding cup with red Swedish fish swimming inside. Along with the candy and other treats on the tables, this was a feast.

Toward the end of the banquet, emotions often bubble up. We see the first tears that come from realizing that this session of camp is soon ending. Especially from the CAs and Hi-Ups, the two groups who grow especially close working together during the session, there was a poignant moment of mixed laughter, smiles and tears. These girls have been through a lot together over the last three weeks, and have grown incredibly close.

What makes a great banquet? We saw it tonight. The dining hall was transformed into an magical environment, and was filled with the kind of friends that felt just like you— so buoyant you can’t help but sing, so joyful you had to jump, so grateful your face hurt from smiling. It was amazing and fun, colorful and loud, and a perfect way to celebrate being together at camp.

The Rockbrook zipline course is scenic, progressive in its challenges, and uniquely thrilling. It winds through the forest, with each zipline passing between huge boulders, among the trees, and even in front of a waterfall above the main part of camp (“Stick Biscuit Falls”). The whole zip line course takes about an hour to complete, and consists of three different zips and 3 different challenge bridges. The first zip is slower, easing the girls into the experience, while the last is an eye-popping, you-can’t-help-but-scream, adrenaline blast. It launches from a large rock face and goes almost 450 feet back into camp giving everyone on the hill a clear view of the fun. The girls wear a helmet and climbing harness tethered to a dual-wheel pulley with a steel backup clip. Launching on a zip and trusting the equipment can take some courage, but the immediate payoff is the exhilarating zoom through the air with arms waving triumphantly. We allow all the campers on the zipline course no matter how young. The Juniors love it too! Of course, it’s optional to sign up, but I’d say almost everyone decides to give it a try.

The Curosty cabin is a cozy, true log cabin at camp and is the home of our fiber arts activity. Inside you’ll find girls weaving on all sorts of looms, and on the back porch campers will be knitting, crocheting, and creating needlepoint design projects. Just behind the porch is a wonderful creek cascading its way over smooth boulders and making small pools of water after each drop. That makes this part of camp the perfect place for basket weaving. Soaking reeds becomes easy, and sitting on the rocks working the reeds into a woven basket shape is delightful. The sounds of the running creek, the sun and shade, and the surrounding forest add to the relaxing experience. It’s easy to imagine Rockbrook girls doing exactly that 100 years ago.

We took our cabin photos this week. The campers and counselors dress up in their red and white uniforms for a group photo. Together they decide where in camp they would like their picture taken. Some sit on the hill or the porch of a lodge, while others stand in a creek or arrange themselves near the lake. A popular spot is posing together around a lifeguard chair, for example. We take these photos in time for us to order a printed copy for everyone to receive on the closing day of camp. We also print on the photo the name of each person, making this a great memento for all the cabin groups this summer.

Finally, I wanted to share a couple of outtakes from the cabin photo sessions. Sometimes, these are hilarious and these two are particularly good. So silly, so goofy, so full of fun-loving kid energy, you have to love them. Camp friendships just inspire this kind of relaxed silliness, laughing so hard you just can’t stop. See if they make you smile too.

It’s pretty easy to spot kids being marvelous around here. It starts first thing in the morning and continues all day, long into the evening. While they bop here and there living their camp lives, being extraordinarily active, friendly, and joyful, they are a delight to encounter. They’re so positive and strong. They’re often talented, and always funny and chatty.

This morning for example, a group of girls and a couple of counselors appeared at the lake before breakfast, around 8am. Believe it or not, they were there to swim! An early morning swim like this we call a “polar bear.” The girls counted down— 3, 2, 1, “PolarBear!” —and jumped into the lake together screaming. With the air temperature about 60 degrees and the water not much warmer, it took real nerve to leap through the misty morning air and into the lake. But these girls were determined, and together they were all pulled along. Impressive!

It’s likewise wonderful to see campers figure things out while at camp. There are a lot of new things to encounter here. From the people they meet to the food they eat, what’s new becomes more familiar and often more easygoing as camp life unfolds. An activity that first feels frustrating, like learning to center a ball of clay on the wheel, can in time lead to a sense of accomplishment. It’s true for their relationships at camp too. With the passing days, the campers get to know each other more and trust each other more, knowing that the people here value who they really are. This makes it increasingly easy to make friends and grow deeper friendships. Especially for the older girls, there’s a “friendship-making muscle” that is happily exercised at camp. That is definitely marvelous.

Another example is how the campers inspire each other to be their best selves. Place kindness at the center of things, and wrap that in silly enthusiastic encouragement, and you’ll see an interesting sort of positivity. The girls are quick to laugh and be silly. They’re often singing together just because it feels good to do it. Even the 16-year-old girls will break out into song without prompting! Today during the surprise ice cream party— the Biltmore Train! —it wasn’t just eating ice cream; it was our entire community celebrating being at camp together. The party is “all you can eat” …as long as your single cone lasts. Eat the ice cream off your cone and head back for another scoop if you like. It’s sweet and messy, and good camp fun.

Finally, it’s marvelous how at this point in the session, the girls seem so comfortable. They’re now familiar with the rhythms of camp life, how to navigate the points of the day, how they like to spend their free time, and how camp feels really good. They simply know what to do and are happy to do it! They know the people and the places around camp better, and easily become part of it all, completely fitting in. Camp is their place, their special place.

As I wandered around on the hill after dinner (during our “twilight” free time), a 12-year-old camper came up to me, looked out across the hill where scores of girls were playing, and said, “Don’t you just love Rockbrook?” I had to stop, astonished by the comment, and look at her carefully before saying, “Yes. Yes, I do. There’s nothing quite like it.” She nodded, and strolled away soaking it all in. Truly marvelous.

Is it possible to have too much fun? Well, for adults who have daily responsibilities and various “urgencies,” I can imagine that having nonstop fun would be a distraction, depending on what you mean by “fun.” If it’s thrills and excitement, or novel entertainment, or just pleasure without purpose, then yes, too much fun for most adults wouldn’t be recommended. But if fun means having moments of playfulness, the freedom to create, or that relaxed feeling of being absorbed in something recreational, then this sort of fun is, when you can find it, certainly a good thing.

For kids at camp, however, I think it’s a little different. Camp means taking a break from things, a break from the pressures of school, from the wildly rushed pace many kids endure, and yes from the orchestration parents ordinarily provide (almost constantly!). Camp means being given the freedom to try new things, to make countless decisions for yourself, and to slow down or speed up as needed. At camp, the many forms of fun are available everyday, and girls can enjoy as much of it as they like. And at camp, there’s something special here that makes almost everything more fun— it’s the people, the other kids and counselors who have the same mindset. “Let’s go! It’ll be fun!” Even if it’s doing cabin chores, singing a song, or jumping in the lake, it’s more fun together. Too much fun at camp? I don’t think it’s possible.

Two recent examples of this come to mind, and both happened on the same day. The first is the whitewater rafting trips we took with our Senior campers. With all 6 buses making the trip over to the Nantahala River, we took two trips, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon, enjoying the bumping and splashing of the rapids. Altogether, about 80 campers and counselors made their way down the 9-mile stretch of river on these trips.

Running the river is certainly thrilling, but when it’s in a raft of silly Rockbrook girls, it’s even better. Having a bunch of friends in the raft with you makes the songs louder, the poses for the camera goofier, and the shrieks laughter more hilarious when someone falls out of, or bounces back into the raft. These trips are big fun, and today the perfectly warm, sunny weather was a welcome boost.

The other example is the all-camp shaving cream fight and slip-n-slide (one naturally leads to the other!) we held after dinner. Here too, bringing all of these excited girls together made the whole event more fun for everyone. If you haven’t seen one these it goes like this. Show up wearing your swimsuit ready to get a little messy. Armed with a can of regular plain shaving cream, you then race around the field trying to spray the white slippery foam on your friends, which means anyone nearby. In all directions foam was flying! There’s something inherently hilarious about surprising someone with a handful of shaving cream splattered on their head or neck or just about anywhere. Squirt, splat, howl with laughter, and repeat.

It doesn’t take long before most everyone is covered with shaving cream, and in some cases completely covered. That too is simply funny to see. But the fun doesn’t stop there. There are hairstyles to form (mohawks seem popular), high fives and other tricks to perform. Girls drew letters in the foam, posed for photos and kept laughing the whole time. Meanwhile, our now slippery campers took turns sliding down a wet sheet of plastic, zooming on their bellies, here too, grinning all the way. Sounds like fun, right? It is! It’s the kind of excellent fun that’s hard to find anywhere else.

The first day of a session when the campers begin their activities is a marvelous example of camp life. Each camper has selected a different thing to do for each of the four scheduled activity periods: two in the morning and two in the afternoon. (By the way, that’s something to ask your camper in a letter or email— “What activities did you sign up for?”) If they are taking Horseback riding, the Riding Director has assigned them to a particular period, but all the others they fill based on their own preferences. You’ve probably seen the huge range of activities and maybe heard your camper talk about particular things they want to try. Our hope is that the girls try new things while they are at Rockbrook. And camp encourages that. When friends are signing up for climbing the Alpine tower, for example, you might join them even though you don’t think of yourself as being very adventurous. Or maybe taking Painting sounds a little scary since you may think “I’m no good at art,” but at camp we start with a spirit of exploration, of trying things just for the fun of it. And when you’ve got encouragement all around and kind friends sometimes literally “in the same boat,” a young person will grow from just taking that first step of trying a new experience. Being afraid of “I might not be good at tennis,” for example, can be a real limitation, but at camp we take care to create the conditions (caring and kindness all the way down) where girls have nothing to fear like that. No judgment, no competition, just joyful engagement.

The different age groups sign up for activities together, assuring that the Juniors are together when they take archery for example, likewise for the Middlers and Seniors. This allows the instructors to tailor their teaching to the level of experience of each group. We split and alternate which activities are available for each group. That means not all of the activities are available to every age group during each signup, but that’s why we split the week and sign up for a new set of activities every three days. We want to give each age group a fresh set of options during each rotation. It’s a little complicated, and they may not get their first choice each rotation, but over the course of the session, everyone will have a chance to try most all of the activities. This is also a great way to encourage each camper to spread out their schedule. They’re bound to experience a little adventure, some sports, and some crafts each day.

This way of selecting activities ensures that the campers can be with different people throughout the day. Since each individual camper selects her schedule, rather than as a cabin group (as is the case at some camps), everyone enjoys meeting new people when they’re stretching in a yoga session, learning to weave, or playing at the lake. It’s during the blocks of free time when this happens even between age groups. During the “First Free Swim” before lunch, the “Second Free Swim” before dinner, and the “Twilight” period after dinner the girls have more independence to decide what they would like to do, spending time with so many different friends.

Walk around camp and that’s what you’ll see— groups of campers deeply engaged in outdoor activities. You’ll see girls making things, being creative with their hands as they cut wood, work a needle and thread, or tie a white t-shirt ready for dyeing. Groups are zipping through the trees on our zipline course, while others are hiking up the steep trail to the top of Castle Rock. Others are playing gagaball, heading to the lake with their towels strung over shoulders, or perhaps loading up a van to find a waterfall in the nearby Pisgah Forest. In all of these examples and more, there’s an added thrill of togetherness making things more fun. That’s camp life— days filled with many many friends, many many activities, charged with laughter and excitement.

The best way to get a sense of all this action is to follow along in the daily photo gallery. If you haven’t seen it, login to your Campminder account. The “Login” link is at the top of every page on the Rockbrook website. Use the same email address you used to complete the pre-camp forms, and you’ll see an icon for “Photos.” We upload batches of photos, usually twice a day and sometimes more often. It’s great fun to login each day and scan through the newest galleries. So take a look and enjoy!