Camp McDowell

Well, I survived 3 days at Camp McDowell!!! I am too old to go to camp, that is for sure!! It was great fun don't get me wrong but my bones can't handle camp beds and 3 hour hikes twice a day! Our weather was crazy. Monday was freezing...42 for the high. Tuesday was 65 degrees and very cloudy. Tuesday night the rains came in...tornado warning about 11pm. Yep...our cabin slept through it all!! Wednesday was cool and drizzly. We learned lots. The best part of the trip for me was meal time and not for the reason you might think. We learned about making wise choices at dinner about the amount of food we put on our plate not necessarily wise choices about the kinds of food we ate. Our goal was to have zero waste at the end of each meal. It was so cool to see how much we wasted at the end of each meal. The first meal we wasted 18 pounds of food. At the last meal we wasted 4 pounds of food. WOW!! My table of kids (9 in all) rocked. We had two meals with zero waste! (There were about 80 kids in all that went.) We learned about ponds and streams, Native Americans, writing about nature using your senses, and using the land for mining. I don't know about the group of girls I was with but I sure learned a lot!! I think Kaleigh would go back again if she had the chance. Here are some photos in no particular order.

Kaleigh in the creek looking for bugs.



Kaleigh in the pond looking for bugs.


The bugs!


Our Field group at the waterfalls.


Kaleigh and me!


Our field group with painted faces like the Native Americans.


Our field group crossing the swinging bridge.


Kaleigh was blindfolded then led to a tree. She had to use her sense of touch, feel the tree, be led back to a starting point, take the blindfold off, then go find the tree she had been led to. (Not sure why!)


Killing a stuffed rabbit using a Native American weapon. The girls had way too much fun doing this!


The fork in the road that led to Camp McDowell! To the right- the girls cabins. To the left- the boys cabins.



The girls at bedtime!



It was a great group of girls. They got along. They did everything that was asked of them without a complaint. It was great!!