They Should Make Summer Camp for Adults

Friends, I love camp. Not camping, though I do enjoy that as well, but Camp. Little wooden structures or tents out in the woods, with dining halls and activity buildings and lots of nature. And campfires, singing, games. Summer camp.

Now, you may be saying, what does this have to do with anything, Kit?

I recently finished up a leadership training course (well, the in-person instruction part of it) and a lot of it was, well, like Summer Camp.

(Also, I went to scout camp with the bigger, mobile one earlier in the summer, and it was amazing.)

My Girl Scout tenure as a child didn’t last terribly long. I did one year of Brownies and three years of Juniors, but when the time came to bridge into Cadettes, I couldn’t find a troop to join. (I was the only one my age in my Junior troop, so the rest of the troop was not ready to bridge). They have a “troop” for girls without troops, where you can work on badges by yourself, but, as you can imagine, there’s not a lot of motivation to finish things up. I don’t even know how many Cadette badges I started. I certainly never submitted the paperwork for a single one of them.

The only real perk of this troop-less troop was that it allowed you to be eligible to go to Girl Scout camp. I went for the first time when I was 11, and it was, in a word, amazing. I think all kids should get to go to summer camp. I hope there’s programs out there that help kids who wouldn’t normally be able to go. Let them sleep in the woods, canoe on a lake, shoot arrows, sing silly songs.

Anyway.

I went again when I was 12 (that was, uh, a session–I lost my whistle, then got lost in the woods at night, had my sleeping bag rained on twice, set the camp record for number of concurrent bug bites, discovered what happens when you eat 12 oranges in a single meal, and sliced my finger open with my pocket knife). And then, as soon as I was old enough, I became a counselor-in-training and spent three summers as a camp counselor.

(After that I was a bit burnt out.)

One of the best things about having procreated is that now I get to go back to camp with my offspring. And it’s still amazing, and so much fun, and I love getting to watch the offspring get to have these experiences.

But it also makes me a bit jealous, you know? So much of parenting is doing things for your kids, and so many activities are geared specifically for children. Sometimes I want to have fun too, you know?

That’s actually what was so great about this leadership training. Sure, we sat around and had lectures a bunch, but that was broken up by songs and silliness, campfires, games, and all the things I loved about camp when I was younger. And we were divided into groups so we had a set group of people we could bond with without having to face down the whole group at once while still having the opportunity to connect to other people outside the group.

I mean, sure, the idea with some of the more fun activities was to learn how to conduct those activities for children, but at least for the few weekends of the training, we got to do those things, for ourselves.

And yes, summer camps for adults do exist, but they’re different, you know? They offer alcohol and glamping, and adult activities that you’d never find at a kids’ summer camp. And I’m sure they’re great fun and I would totally do them, but it’s not quite the same, you know?

Anyway, happy almost autumn, everyone! I’ll be back in OCTOBER BEST MONTH OF THE YEAR. *cough*