Prissy Girls Grow Up to Be Prissy Women

The school year is coming to a close and the summer camping season is quickly approaching.  Yesterday Miss K had American Heritage Girls (AHG).  It's kind of a Christian Girl Scouts.  I really like this organization.  This is not a boy-haters/girl power club, but centers around God and Country, a group to learn leadership and volunteerism.  This particular group is fairly new, within the last 10 years, and has not had much experience with real camping as a group and from what I could tell of the parent meeting yesterday afternoon, not many have had personal experience camping either. 

Every year AHG plans what they call Camporee.  Essentially it is a weekend campout.  In the years past our group has gone and set up tents, always arriving after dark, always suffering through rain at some point in the weekend, but being fed in a dining hall and having flush toilets and enjoying many inside activities.  Hiking consisted of walking to and from the dining hall from what I can tell. 

This year, Camporee will be held at a different campground and our group will be responsible for their own meals and have to use pit toilets.  They are accustomed to using tents, so this is nothing new for them, and the leaders have finally decided that they should arrive before the girls and oversee the tents being set up.  Some of the older girls will be required to "sleep under the stars" one night to receive one of their badges.  At this point in the meeting, I am having fond memories of my years at Girl Scout and various church camps.  Then the meeting took an ugly turn...

After having to sit through demonstrations of how to pack a tote (they have learned from their soggy past campouts to use a plastic tote rather than a suitcase), and seeing items in the tote and on the provided packing list and the leaders still trying to decide if the girls should be responsible for having their own toilet paper or if the leaders should provide it, I'm starting to lose interest.  I'm hungry, bored and would really just like some sort of waiver stating I'll accept full responsibility for my daughter's toiletries and a final draft of the packing list after they are finished bickering over what is standard.  Next was a discussion about what kind of shoes to wear.  Yawn.

In an effort not to rehash the over hour long meeting, I'll just highlight some of my favorite comments from the parents.

I'm going to take those little paper cover-thingys to put on the seat.  ~ This comment after finding out they were going to use latrines.  Can I ask what difference a seat cover is going to make?  After all, if there are seats in both types of facilities, what is a seat cover going to protect you from any further in an outside toilet?

Will there be a refrigerator?~Really?!?!  First, the leaders had already explained that there was a need for coolers.  Second, they said there was no electricity.  Third, it's a weekend Camping trip!!  Wow!

I'm glad that the girls and the leaders are learning from their past camping experiences together.  There is hope!  Thankfully the young girls are getting many of their own fun camping memories.  Many of my fondest memories are of disaterous camping experiences, but none of them were due to being unprepared.  (Thanks Dad)  I pray that these girls continue to camp and learn to love it as much as I do.  I hope that there are plenty of mudpies, tents with zippers that stick, strange shadows and noises in the middle of the night and flash lights dropped in the latrine.  Afterall, aren't these the things memories are made of?

Yellowstone--June 2009  It rained the whole time we were there and the avereage temp was 50!