D-Now to the Rescue!

On Friday morning I got a phone call from Rob Collins, the youth guy at Locust Grove. He told me the church had a big D-Now event going for the weekend and had run into a little problem. He had lined up a couple of service projects for one of the groups and both had been canceled--at nearly the last minute. His question: could we help them out? Oh, and by the way the group--about 22 in all--would be made up of 9th grade girls. I asked Rob to give me a little while and told him I'd call him back with a list. 

The girls arrived in 4 vehicles at about 8:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, raring to go . . .

I had three projects ready for them, so they decided it was best to divide into two groups. Little did I know that they had allotted 3 hours to do the tasks.  

The first two involved cleaning up an area just off Cedar Top Campground which had literally hundreds of old plastic flower pots (many semi-buried) and a bunch of other old stuff . . . 

Forget the forest -- sometimes it's hard to see the girls for the trees!

Teamwork always pays off.

Heave-ho!  Look at them handle that huge tire!

And clearing the Obstacle Course area from rocks . . .

They all had a great attitude and made quick work of both of these projects. 

The last chore was to move a woodpile from down the hill to the pavilion fireplace area. 

They formed an assembly line and knocked this one out very quickly as well, I was impressed. As a matter of fact within a little over an hour all three projects were completed. 

They were so efficient and fast in their work, they had some time to spare!  After hearing there were trails,   they decided to go for a group run/walk. They took off down the Nature Trail for about 20 minutes or so...came back to take  a few pictures and then called their rides to pick them up. 

We really appreciate all the hard work they put into clean-up -- they did a fabulous job! Thanks, girls!! We hope they'll be regular visitors at the camp, now that they know it's here!

And so it begins . . .

Our first camp-out of the 2013 season - the Father-Son Camp-Out from Willowbrook Baptist Church.

It's an annual event, though I am not sure just how many years it goes back. I do know that they've been up here every spring since we've been here. Chris Wilson and Sam Kelly are always prepared and make this event pleasurable for all who attend. They usually get here before everyone else and are here long after all have departed. 

Attendance this weekend was in the mid 50's with several dads attending who had never been up to the camp before. 

The first scheduled event on Friday was the official flag raising followed by supper. Groups divided up later and went in separate directions all over the camp. 

The sun setting didn't dampen the fun ... quite to the contrary, it brought into play the traditional game of  flashlight tag which keeps things interesting long into the evening!

I did notice several different type of sleeping arrangements while tooling around in Easy (the golf cart). 

There were tents pitched, of course, one dad brought up his RV, there was a sleeping bag laid out on an old church pew under the pavilion, and someone had a cot tucked up underneath the porch on the new almost finished bathroom in the main campground. 

As always there was plenty of food and a couple of fires going the whole time. 

They chose a perfect weekend as the daytime temps were close to 70 and night right above freezing.