Camp Blog

Tonight the CA campers, our 9th grade girls, presented their surprise themed banquet, the whole-camp party celebrating our time together at camp. After weeks of planning, which began on their very first day at camp, these girls had an elaborate evening of costumes, decorations, skits, games, dances, food and snacks ready to entertain and amaze the rest of the campers and staff.

The evening began with the arrival of news delivered by a fairy riding a unicorn. This white horse-like animal with a colorful crown of flowers circling his single horn proudly trotted into camp as a line colorful fairies, princesses, mermaids, and pirates cheered. The youngest campers were wide-eyed with astonishment as the unicorn rode past. It was then that we learned tonight’s banquet would be in three locations, with each age group rotating though the locations every 40 minutes or so.

This would be a “progressive” banquet transporting the campers from under the sea, to a land of pirates and princesses, to an enchanted forest populated by glowing, sparkly fairies.

The hillside lodge was decorated with an ocean theme. Mermaids helped the campers play games like “pin the trident on the merman,” and “throw the pearl in the clam,” a version of corn hole. They decorated a banner with everyone’s names on it to preserve the banquet and the names in history.

At the gym, the campers found princesses and pirates locked in a heated struggle, but also castles and dragons. Dance numbers turned the gym into a dance party. A highlight was a painted portrait of Jeff and Sarah as a King and Queen.

The last location was the dining hall which was decorated with a forest theme and many tea candle lights. Glowing princesses danced and delivered food to the campers: “shipwreck salad,” “Fresh Fairy Fruit,” “Treasure Trove Tortellini,” “Royal Rosemary” chicken breasts, and “Ballroom Brownies.” Of course the tables included a variety of candies and souvenir red cups as well.

After all three lines visited all three locations, everyone in camp assembled on the hill to hear the CA and Hi-Up songs. This is another long tradition at Rockbrook where these groups of campers show their appreciation for their counselors by writing a song for them and singing it in front of all the other girls. They take a familiar tune and rewrite the lyrics making references to their time together, recalling funny moments, and using silly nicknames or phrases. Counselors of each group do the same for the campers too. So we heard 4 songs altogether.

Lastly, it’s a tradition for the whole camp to sing “Rockbrook Camp Forever,” one of the oldest traditional songs that everyone knows. Dressed in their red RBC t-shirts, each cabin group gathered arm-in-arm in a big group hug, counselors and campers together. They sang and swayed singing the song multiple times. It’s a sweet moment representing the friendships formed in each cabin group.

The banquet was a beautiful success, easily one of the best in recent memory. The girls loved all three locations and appreciated all the hard work the CA girls did to make it happen. What a wonderful way to celebrate the session!

Take a look at these photos. Obviously, they are of the shaving cream fights we had on Sunday afternoon. We had three, one for each age group neighborhood— the Juniors, the Middlers, and the Seniors. On a sunny summer afternoon, romping around in your swimsuit with friends, sprinklers and water hoses going, is always a lot of fun. Add in cans of plain shaving cream, and you have a hilarious good time.

Calling this a “fight” isn’t exactly accurate. There’s no aggressive behavior, no goal of conquest. There are no teams or score kept to be announced in the end. For that matter, there’s no defined way for a shaving cream fight to end.

So what is it? Well, it requires only a few things: a grassy field, cans of shaving cream, and a group of fun-loving friends who are comfortable with each other and are willing to get messy. High tempo dance music is optional, but recommended.

It doesn’t take long for a shaving cream fight to begin. Without any prompting in fact, the girls know exactly what to do; squirt the white slippery foam on someone. Splatter the stuff on anyone nearby. Squirt some in your hand and plop it right on her head. Get as much shaving cream on everyone else as possible, even if they try to run away. Chase after them, and spray! Rub it all over their backs. Launch globs into their hair and help them create the most fabulous hairdo they’ve ever experienced.

Of course, as you chase, you’re being chased. As you spray shaving cream, it’s being sprayed on you too. Soon everyone is covered, slippery, and looking pretty silly. Most importantly, everyone is also laughing hysterically. The feeling of being covering in shaving cream, seeing your friends’ reactions, and watching the chaos of it all, are uniquely funny. Outside of camp, you’ll never see girls having this kind of deep, affirming fun, the kind of laughter that makes you pause to take a breath. A shaving cream fight like this taps into the the most genuine of celebratory joy.

With all these slippery kids, what’s more natural than sliding down a wet sheet of plastic? At camp, that’s completely natural! The gentle slope nearby our grassy landsports field makes a great place to spread out the slide. Soon the girls were taking turns sliding two at time. Run, launch, and slide on your belly. It’s a fun challenge to stay upright, but flipping and flopping as you slide is a fine way to go.

An afternoon shaving cream fight like this proves once again that these camp girls know how to have a good time with each other. The shaving cream, water hoses, and sheet of plastic didn’t make it great. Those bits served as a catalyst of sorts for the girls themselves to create the fun. Their positive relationship with each other, the trust and goodwill already proven through days of common experience, made that fun a possibility. You can imagine a group of random people who didn’t know each other would have a hard time having fun in a shaving cream fight. Especially adults! There’s no way that could happen. A camp shaving cream fight is inherently more genuine than what could happen among any other group of people.

Perhaps that’s true about a lot of things at Rockbrook— the authenticity of our relationships, each of us living and showing our real selves, makes us enjoy ourselves more. Knowing each other this well, relaxing into who we really are because we sense this community is here to support and encourage us, opens up a quality of experience that’s just out of reach ordinarily. I do think that’s part of what makes camp life so special and enjoyable for your girls, and truly for everyone here at Rockbrook. Blame it on the culture of camp, but there are real effects… even in something as simple as a shaving cream fight.

Let’s start with the food. It’s really been fabulous this summer, and today’s meals stand out.

Lunch was a chance to get creative as Rick and his crew provided an array of ingredients for everyone to make their own “breakfast sandwich.” Breakfast for Lunch! He had english muffins, with eggs and cheese, breakfast meats, avocado, lettuce, tomato, and an array of condiments. He served fresh local blackberries on the side. But for dinner, as part of our “centennial celebration,” Rick pulled out all the stops! He made fried chicken, mounds of mashed potatoes, gravy, fresh green beans, and homemade biscuits… 770 homemade, cut-by-hand, biscuits! What a meal! Then to top it off, let me introduce you to the dessert known around here as a “Rockbrookie.” Sydney, one of our bakers, invented these triple-layer bars: chocolate chip cookie on the bottom, a layer of Oreo cookie in the middle, and brownie on the top. One of a kind delicious!

Just about all day, and almost everyday, the looms in Curosty are in motion. Girls of all ages take turns sitting and working the warp and weft, using colorful yarns to weave swatches. Often, the girls keep these handmade pieces of cloth to use them as placemats or simple decorative pieces, but they can also be sewn into small pillows or bags.

After dinner tonight, we held a counselor hunt. This is a very popular all-camp activity where the staff members do their best to hide somewhere in camp and the girls travel around in the their cabin groups searching. Being so wooded, Rockbrook has loads of great hiding spots. Many counselors dress all in black, and often cover themselves with a trash bag. One actually hid inside a trash bag, inside a trashcan! Others hid inside canoes, or covered themselves with leaves. The girls have a great time racing around the camp searching for these hidden staff members. Some were found right away, and others not at all. When we rang the bell to signal the “all clear,” all but a handful were found. Each counselor hiding had a key that they gave to the cabin group who found them. Then out of all the keys, only one opened a “treasure box” that contained a few small gifts for the cabin. The cabin groups took turns trying their keys to see if theirs was the one. The box also revealed that later tonight we would have a fireworks show!

When we show fireworks at camp, it’s a great time for the girls. They gather on the hill in their crazy creek chairs and look toward the sky above the lake. We launch from the lake, so when the colors burst in the sky, they are easily seen by the girls on the hill above. We play fun dance music, hand out glow sticks for everyone, and serve popsicles right before getting started. There’s nothing quite like fireworks to celebrate, and since it’s Rockbrook’s 100th birthday this year, this was perfect.

I’ll leave you with a short video clip of the show. You can just make out the singing and cheering over the sound of the explosions.

One of my favorite things to do during camp is to wander into an activity area and hang out with the girls. As they busily shape their clay, twist and tie white t-shirts prepping them for dyes, or struggle to find the next climbing hold on the tower, they are funny and chatty with each other. Laughter punctuates their conversations. Support and encouragement flow between them. Their instincts are so positive, so cheerful, their friendships so relaxed and natural. It’s a special experience just to witness it. Even better, I’ve found it rejuvenating to join in, if not to do the activity, then to join the conversation.

For example, today I hung out with a couple of 8th graders while they worked on their embroidery projects. It was right before dinner during the 2nd block of “free swim” free time. While I didn’t grab a needle and thread myself, we had a great conversation about how camp was going. I asked them what they thought made camp so special. For them, what do they like about life at Rockbrook (one of my favorite things to think about and ask campers about)? These two girls have been coming to camp for about 5 years each, and were here for the main 4-week session, so they would have a solid perspective to offer. I was expecting them to say how they loved the variety of activities (they did), and enjoyed the food (they did, enthusiastically!), and appreciated their counselors (“easily the best counselors I’ve ever had. I love them so much,” they told me). These clearly are important components of what makes camp life great. But after thinking about it a bit more, one of them said something extraordinarily insightful.

She said, “Being at camp makes me more mindful of things.” By “more,” she meant compared to being at home interacting with her school friends. “When I’m here I pay attention to more things, and appreciate more things,” she explained. When I asked her why that was the case, what it was about life at camp that made her more mindful, she said, “It probably has to do with not having my phone, but I think it’s also that there’s more time to slow down and notice things.”

Wow! That is so true! I think this insightful young person put her finger on one of the most important aspects of camp life— that it provides an environment that encourages us, campers and staff alike, to be more mindful. It inspires us to pay attention to the world around us, to the people, to nature, and to who we really are. So many of the important benefits of camp, I suspect, can be traced to this.

The core experience of making friends at camp, of forging a strong mutual relationship with someone who really knows you and really cares about you, grows from being mindful of each other. The success girls feel when making decisions independently, dozens of decisions each day, builds from paying attention to the details of the environment. Developing social skills depends on an awareness of others, their feelings, expectations, and needs. Tapping into the wonders and beauty of nature requires our mindful attention. To have fun, in some ways, means being attentive to the activity itself, unaware of how your skills compare, or the final score of the game.

I think she is right, also, that the slower pace of camp, along with it being “screen-free,” are important conditions that make us more mindful at camp. Instead of charging full speed ahead, striving to “get ahead,” in the outside world, camp provides free time to “notice and appreciate” more of what’s right next to us. Moving too fast always means skimming over things, as being hectic is the enemy of being mindful. Life at camp is a welcome relief from all that. With less urgency in the mix, camp provides this kind of special permission to notice.

And yes, having instant, easy access to a smartphone is obviously a distraction. The lure of passive entertainment and the thrill of social media trends dull our sensitivity to the nuances around us. That’s surely a recipe for diminished relationships of all kinds. When campers can’t default to their devices whenever things slow down, or become “awkward” for some reason, they are more inclined to pay attention to, and engage with, what’s around them. Ditching their smartphones makes their lives more rich.

Could this be the reason everything seems better at camp— the friendships deeper, the food more delicious, our sense of self more confident, our feelings of gratitude and love more genuine and widespread? Maybe so. Maybe taking a break from the frantic pace of ordinarily life, with all its demands and distractions, is what makes camp life feel so good. Camp is a haven from all that, a safe place to pay attention, enrich your experience, and make connections that might not otherwise form. I think that’s what this needle crafting young person meant. Girls love Rockbrook for all sorts of reasons, but I think its ability to inspire mindfulness is an important part of that positive feeling.

Isn’t that amazing?! Thank goodness for camp! It’s giving your girls firsthand experience of this approach to life. It’s showing them that paying attention is both important and rewarding. It’s demonstrating how to enrich their relationships with just about everything, people and activities alike. Camp is allowing them live these insights and perhaps later at home, to be a little more mindful.

Ordinarily during this part of the summer we are giving lots of tours. It’s quite common for families who have somehow heard of Rockbrook to stop by when they are in the area and get a first-hand glimpse into life at camp. For someone who hasn’t seen Rockbrook girls in their element, a tour is marvelous. This summer, however, as we think about precautions against the coronavirus, we are not offering tours. We are trying to minimize our contact with people outside of camp, and unfortunately, this means camp tours have been restricted.

OK, no tours this summer, but what are they usually like?

A tour of Rockbrook will certainly showcase the facilities— our renovated bathrooms and showers with unlimited hot water, our covered horseback riding arena that’s the biggest of any camp in NC, our 2 19th-century log cabins used for craft activities, our stone meeting lodges, the waterfalls and rock faces on the property, climbing tower, unique lake, dining hall and rustic sleeping cabins. Visitors to Rockbrook are often struck by the organic beauty of the place. With its large trees, creeks and thick forest setting, and really not much “lawn,” it’s immediately apparent that this 100-year old camp has a special depth. Different from the overly landscaped environments common elsewhere, you can feel the close relationship Rockbrook has with nature. That’s all good stuff but being enamored with a camp’s facilities, while interesting, is only part of the story.

Touring during the summer is also a great way to see many of the camp activities in motion, see actual campers clicking their looms, firing their guns, and rolling their kayaks, for example. Being here in the morning, means witnessing the joyful rush toward the dining hall for muffin break. You’ll probably catch a glimpse of a girl flying past the office on the final zipline of the course. You’re bound to see many examples of artistic creativity as girls work with clay, colorful bottles of dye, yarns, paints, wood and wax. You’ll probably spend a little time at the Rockbrook Riding Center watching girls walk, trot, canter and jump, and at the Rockbrook lake marveling at the range of water activity, from screaming down the waterslide to relaxing in a floating tube. Girls are having a lot of fun at camp, clearly, but realizing that is still not the best reason to take a tour of Rockbrook.

The best part of taking a camp tour is meeting the people of Rockbrook, both the campers and the staff members. There are just really great folks here, friendly caring people, all enthusiastic about camp. You can spot these qualities when you see how the girls treat each other so nicely. They’re paying attention to each other, smiling at each other, showing that they care. Meeting girls at Rockbrook is marvelous because they’re so refreshingly silly, genuinely comfortable and happy. Immersed in the Rockbrook camp culture, you can tell that they love camp. Most will tell you that there’s no other place they’d rather be. It feels that good to be at camp. Once again, it’s the people that make the camp, and hence are the most delightful part of every tour.

If you already send your daughter to Rockbrook, you probably know all this. You’ve seen hints of it in the photo gallery, maybe even read something about it in a letter home. You don’t need a tour to appreciate the beauty, the fun, and the people of Rockbrook. For others, we hope our Web site —its photography, videos, and written descriptions— can help, at least until that time when we can offer tours again. Meanwhile, you can also enjoy a virtual tour of camp.