A Great Day

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Let’s start with the weather…

I mentioned the heavy rain that hit camp early Tuesday morning and according to the forecast should have have remained for most of the day. That didn’t happen. The clouds lifted and by second period we were once again playing tennis on dry courts. But even though we appreciated the dry, at camp, it doesn’t matter! Rain doesn’t really bother us at Greystone.

In 2013 it rained every day for five weeks. We had biblical levels of rain, soul-crushing levels of rain, WAY too much rain… it caused no end of trouble for the maintenance crew (the mud pit outside of Tentalow 2 was so deep campers lost their shoes in it) and such circumstances might have diminished the camper experience… but it didn’t. In fact, that summer was so much fun we talk about it to this day. Campers who returned as counselors brought it up all the time and now it is a favorite topic for alumnae gatherings. It was delightful.

This morning the clouds parted and the forecast calls for perfect NC weather. Only afternoon showers for the rest of camp - here comes the sun! We look forward to a perfect 75-degree day with low humidity. Fluffy clouds, songbirds singing, sheep frolicking, and horses munching in green pastures. Not a bad day at camp!

This cooler weather is a gift. The average high temperatures for August in Asheville are 90 degrees, so when the high temperature for the day is forecast to be 75 degrees we do not take it for granted, it makes us very happy!

The girls are adjusting to camp very quickly, and good thing… August Camp is a very quick session. Blink and it is over, so we encourage the girls to soak up every minute. They take this advice literally, running to their next class as soon as the bell rings. Since we have arranged the cabin class schedules, the girls seldom have to go far. Often the next class is just a hundred yards away! When the girls chose their own classes, they would often choose classes that were on opposite sides of camp. When the bell rang, they would run full speed and it could be a tiring sprint (it takes a camper 5 minutes to run from one end to another). I find it delightful that the girls still run when the bell rings. They might just be going 100 feet, but they will run every foot of that distance. They arrive at the next class ready to call roll so quickly it surprises the counselors who might have been anticipating a quiet moment to collect their thoughts. The enthusiasm is off the charts and such enthusiasm spreads like wildfire… It is an amazing experience to live in such a happy community.

One little “focus” activity today… High Ropes/Adventure. This is one of our most popular areas of camp, very well engineered and carefully optimized for safety. Campers are able to move at their own pace through the 30 plus stations on the ropes course thanks to the Bornack Smart Safety Belay system. The counselor’s attention is thus fully on engaging with the girls: encouraging them when they are tentative, cheering them on when they show exceptional skill, making them laugh, and getting to know them. When campers signed up for classes, Ropes and Adventure (two separate activity areas) were each rated in the top 5 classes in camp… it is a lot of fun and the girls gain a great deal of confidence mastering these apparently scary activities. We LOVE the adventure program and aggressively invest in this area of camp with intensive maintenance and upgrades whenever possible.

I just got off the phone with Gervais, our Kitchen Director, to find out what the menu for the day will be. I should take a minute to brag about the food service at Greystone. It is REALLY good and has gotten better this year due to the new (and very big) garden that is part of the Farm & Garden program. August is harvest time and the tomatoes are in. We will be eating BLT’s for lunch and ALL OF IT (except the bacon) is grown or made at camp. We grew the lettuce & tomatoes and baked the bread. Crazy.

Greystone Bread and Honey is famous. The 4 level deck oven is perfect for baking bread and making pizzas (in fact, that is all it is good for… it is custom-designed to bake bread and pizza, we use it all morning every day). The baking crew mixes the dough first thing in the morning and is cooling hundreds of loaves by noon. The delightful aroma of baking bread makes every corner of camp feel very homey. Now that I think of it, who among us bakes bread every day? It is kind of unique to camp. That smell makes all campers feel very warm and fuzzy inside and it is one of the first things that returning campers notice on their first day back.

OK… that is enough. Time for the details: