Storms and storms

[heidi]

Y HALLO THAR DEEEEEEN! No, not fleeing yet, but we're all expecting a delay in the start of the school year next week. And will it be GilmoreGirls!Dean or Supernatural!Dean in its behaviour, or art-creating HP!Dean, hmmm?

Back to Disney for us, perhaps, if we flee?

And in sad news, this tragedy happened at the camp I attended back in 1982. I hated that camp - I had a terrible problem with an evil cabin-mate that year but I really enjoyed learning how to water-ski there, and what happened last week was terrible. But it solidified my resolve not to ever ever ever let my kids go to sleepaway camp (even though Spouse and friends are trying to shake my resolve, damn them!).

Comments

[marag.livejournal.com]

OMG, I went to Camp Blue Star in Hendersonville. I mostly had a good time, although I also had an evil cabinmate one year.

Overall, I *adored* sleepaway camp.

[ancarett]

Eek about the prospects for Dean and Ooo! about the camp. That's run out of the town where my dad lives, these days, so I'd already heard about it.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

I'm vaguely curious about what people think locally about the camp, both from a general perspective and a safety perspective, if you know...

[til-midnight.livejournal.com]

I am too, since I am local. I live next door to one summer camp and have worked at another for four years and camping is such a *huge* part of the economy here. I had not heard of that particular camp, but it strikes pretty close to home.

[ancarett]

All I heard, from my dad, is that some people were saying that this kind of thing happens because the camps are getting crowded out by other development so they go further away for these outings where they aren't familiar with the locale and more accidents happen. Don't think I necessarily believe that -- accidents can happen anywhere!

We have tonnes of camps around where I live (which is the far northern reaches of Ontario's "cottage country) and my older daughter really didn't like the one overnight camp she went to at age nine. Younger daughter keeps bugging me to let her go now that she's older, but with her autism and seizure disorder, there's no way that's going to happen anytime soon!

[til-midnight.livejournal.com]

Don't think I necessarily believe that -- accidents can happen anywhere!

Oh, definitely. The camp I work at is fairly tame (no water skiing for one) and since I worked in the kitchen, I didn't always know what happened on trips away from camp, but I do know that we had one camper run away. Luckily, he was a local camper and a neighbor just happened to drive past and see him and take him back to the camp before he crossed the state line.

[phoenixsong]

Oh, do let them go! I loved Camp Turner as a kid. There was a beach nearby, but it was a voluntary sign-up sort of activity. We did lots of other neat stuff, too -- horseback riding, arts and crafts, and one summer the counselors had every session help build a bridge. Another summer, there was someone who gave guitar lessons all week. And the skits! Oh, the skits we had to put together were a riot.

[affectingly.livejournal.com]

Oh man, that's awful... I worked a whole summer as a camp counselor once, and it's one of my favorite memories, but... yeah. We didn't do boating like that... we had row boats and canoes and we made the campers, even if they were our oldest (15) use lifevests. It was a much more low-key camp, but I loved it.

[affectingly.livejournal.com]

P.S. Where do you guys usually stay when you go to Disney? For Charley, Frances, and Jeanne, I was on the ride-out crew for Disney. I worked/stayed at the Wilderness Lodge. It was intense, but oddly fun. Charley was probably the worst for Orlando out of all those, but Frances and Jeanne weren't weaklings.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

We've been in a lot of places - Swan, of course, for Nimbus, Contemporary, Grand Floridian, Yacht & Beach, Riverfront, All Star Movies and the Hilton by Downtown Disney.

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

As a kid I was always sent to Girl Scout camp and hated most of it. I would highly recommend family vacations that go to places where you can all do some fishing, camping, horseback riding, canoeing. I loved all those activities, especially when my mom and dad did them with me. I'm a proponent of kids learning to do "old skills" even if they never do them again. I think it's healthy and mentally stimulating. There are wonderful places where you can go.

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

But it solidified my resolve not to ever ever ever let my kids go to sleepaway camp

I can still throw in a vote of confidence for Space Camp as an alternative. Have gone, was shiny. ;)

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Is SpaceCamp usually two weeks, or is it a whole-summer thing? One of Harry's friends is going this weekend but with his dad for a parent-child weekend and it looks like a lot of fun.

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

My stay was a week, but it varies depending on program (there's lots of options these days, even day camp). You can see the whole collection here (http://www.spacecamp.com/).

And since they seem to be showing Harry Potter at the IMAX there, too, you might recognize some familiar faces on the front page. *laugh* Go figure....

[schnoogle.livejournal.com]

Oh, but the camps I went on were so much fun! I didn't necessarily think so at the time when my legs were aching and the tent was leaking and the toilets weren't the flushing sort, but I'm really glad now that I had those experiences. Now you've made me all nostalgic. :P

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Oh, gah, that was a horrible year for it.

Our house was very lucky in the two-shot of Katrina and Wilma in 2006, but my parents' house was damaged, they lost all their trees and had no power for almost six weeks - and ended up moving out three months later because they didn't want to deal with another hurricane in a house ever again.

And you know, there's crazy weather everywhere - I mean, a tornado in NYC? For me, I'd rather deal with hurricanes than earthquakes, which is why we're here and not on the west coast in the first place. Earthquakes - the idea of them! - terrify me.

ahem

[jlh.livejournal.com]

How quickly we forget. *shakes head*

Re: ahem

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

But that Dean isn't US-based!
: clutches at straws, and edits post in shame

[ashavah]

The summer camp thing confuses me a little. We don't really have them here! We have recreation centres at dams and stuff, but there's no concept of kids all going off to camp over the summer.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

I think it's a very US (and maybe Canada)-generated thing. There are, I'm sure, benefits to it but...

Not a fan.

[sheryll.livejournal.com]

Yup, we've got lots of sleepaway camps here in Canada, too. Andy worked at one for over 10 years. Both Nyssa and my nephew went to Camp Otterdale. This is the first year that Andy isn't there cooking (his new promotion doesn't allow it). Otterdale is a great camp, the owner is very hands on and would probably live there year-round if his family would permit it. Jeff adds on new things to the camp at every opportunity (though they stopped keeping horses because it was more trouble than it was worth). The senior campers get an overnight adventure on an island in the middle of Otter Lake, too, and they love it! Oh, and those kids eat really well (at least they did while Andy was cooking). :D

Seriously, sleepaway camp can be a great experience. Not every child enjoys it, but most of the ones I know do.

[redblaze.livejournal.com]

How bad is it that I didn't even know about this until I saw this post. . .Man, I'm so outta it. . .

Go away, Dean!

:(

Kele

[freckles42.livejournal.com]

(Gratuitous Icon)

One of my friends used to work at that camp (until two summers ago, actually), and she'd attended there since she was a little girl. She knew the counselor that was killed and was quite shaken up by it (understandably).

I went to sleepaway camp every summer from the time I was six until... goodness, I must have been 16 and aged out, and even then I still went camping with the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts Sea Explorers. I loved it, but I know I would definitely investigate a camp before letting my (theoretical) kids go there. But hey, the scariest thing that happened to me one summer was when lightning struck the singing stump in our unit (it was this ooooold oak stump and it got split apart during the storm). We were all pretty freaked by how close it had come to hitting any of our tents. Still... I wouldn't trade any of those memories for the world. I remember the first time I got a unit that had flush toilets. :3 It almost seemed wrong.

[stormwynd.livejournal.com]

Hopefully you won't have to evacuate, but if you do, Disney sounds like a good place to rough it for a few days. :-D

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

I hope that Cone of Doom icon isn't Dean's predicted path? My dad went up to Charlotte 2 1/2 weeks ago specifically to avoid hurricanes in New Orleans.

As for summer camp, I never went (too many kids and not enough money; we were like the Weasleys but with girls) but I wanted my darling daughter to attend some sort of camp. She's been to a Girl Scout camp in northern Wisconsin 2 summers in a row and a camp for kids with asthma this summer. She plans to attend both until she's too old to go (13 is the cutoff for the asthma camp). AFAIK there's no water-skiing or motorized boats at these camps, though.

[dramawench.livejournal.com]

I went to a sleepaway camp like that in the North Georgia mountains. It was on a lake and we did all kinds of boating and water sports and no one ever got hurt like that. It was so wonderful!

[slytherincesss.livejournal.com]

I am hesitant to let my kids to go to sleepaway camp, too. Although my high school has a wonderful summer camp . . . I don't think I could let them go. I'm too paranoid.

[msavi.livejournal.com]

::pokes heidi8's resolve::

Some of my fondest childhood memories come from summers spent at a sleepaway camp. ;P

In defense of summer camps...

[jocelyncs.livejournal.com]

The camp I attended for 1 week every summer from age 11 to age 15 was one of the most wonderful experiences in my childhood memory. It was Camp Crystal north of Gainesville, a very well-run and professionally-organized business that was still affordable for non-trust-fund families.

I did have a bad experience with cabin-mates my first year, but in that instance, the counselors came down very hard on the brats and worked hard to reinforce my own enjoyment despite the teasing. (Typical preteen stuff--you can't completely stop it unless you lock the kids up, but they made an effort to prevent bullying, and that counts for a lot in my book.)

I stunk at water skiing, although it was fun, but I loved horseback riding (which was discontinued after my second summer, dammit!), aquarium biology (basically hunting for cool fishies and animals in the lakes for our aquarium), canoeing, kayaking, sailing (even when we got caught out in a storm and our counselor had to rescue us), and swimming.

So to complete this camp-advocacy soapbox, your kidlets are young yet--don't write off the possibility of a camp experience entirely. There are hundreds of camps out there, and many which, as my camp did, take safety VERY seriously. We got a safety talk for every single activity we participated in (even arts and crafts), were required to have buddies at all times in and around the water, etc. A high counselor-to-camper ratio is also a good sign.

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

I just really want an excuse to use this icon. Nothing to say, just entertained.