Camp-tastic

Well, I drove 3 hours north into Michigan and left my oldest kid at a summer camp.  Like a for-reals, Salute Your Shorts style camp (in contrast to the Girl Scout camp I went to), with boating and archery and stuff.

Camp in the 60s.....or 60s outdoors in general, had a nice pallette.  Is it just the old color film?

I did not look like this on Sunday.  Actually, I probably never look that good--road trip or not.

All this google image searching for Parent Trap stills made me think...wasn't the mom in on the plot?  After being lured to California anyway?  And isn't the romance rekindled when she loses that AWESOME suit for barefoot in the kitchen?  

And how fucked up was that custody decision in the first place?  

A former colleague used to go to a family style camp every summer...like the one on Dirty Dancing.  He said the same families would be there every year, so you knew a lot of people.  There was arts and crafts, boating--even a camp "olympics" at the end of the week.  It always sounded fun in that "I'm never actually going to do that" kind of way.

Mountain Lake Lodge

You can stay at one of the places they filmed Dirty Dancing...The Mountain Lake Inn  (per Wikipedia) in Roanoke Virginia, and they have special DD themed weekends for die hard fans.  I randomly found it when I was trying to find a place to stay near Blacksburg, VA..and I might actually go there next fall.  For trivia hounds, the other location was the Lake Lure Inn in North Carolina, which no longer exists.

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My favorite time at Girl Scout camp was the "Native American" week that was offered one year.  This blond haired, blue eyed guy who was supposedly "part-Indian" lived at the camp in a teepee and taught us Native American home arts.

A quickly pulled No Doubt video, via

Seriously--I made rope/string from the inner bark of poplar trees, made little pouch/containers out of bark, and learned to identify edibles and medicinal herbs in the woods.  We called him the Hot Indian, a name I believe started by the counselors, and sadly that is the only name I remember.  I do know that Native American week was never offered again.

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I remember that the Hot Indian's wife had recently asked (demanded?) to leave the Talladega National Forrest where they were squatting....in their teepee...because she was six months pregnant.  So he bought a camper and found some woods they could legally live in and had a camper and a teepee next to eachother.  With a now 1 year old.  (Well, she was living with her parents while he was working at camp).

Does this count as camping?

I remember thinking WTF?  From all appearances, this guy did not have a trust fund.  He taught some archeology classes adjunct at a local junior college.  Even at 13 or something, I knew that it would take more than charm to get me to live in the woods.  And now, I'm less excited about eating leaves.

It must run in the family.

my little bro