Once a camper, always a camper. While some of your friends are counting down the days until school got out for summer, you and I count down the days until camp! While some daydream in math class about plans for the weekend or the latest video game, a camper’s daydreams always lead us to our home in the mountains…Camp Highlander.
You see even though you leave camp at the end of the summer, camp never really leaves you. The memories from my childhood at camp are relived in my heart each day and each summer with all of you. Camp can never leave you because it is a part of you, and for those of us who live camp all year, we are what they call summer camp lifers!
So how is it we got this love for camp? What exactly was it that made us camp crazy?
Here we go with Uncle Karl’s top 10 reasons you became a summer camp LIFER:
- The smell of camp!
There is nothing like it. That first night each summer in your bunk with the cold mountain air smelling like Pine, Hemlock and Rhododendron trees.
- Camp Counselors!
Getting your favorite counselor each summer is one of the most exciting things. These counselors are real live heroes who change your life and you will never forget.
- Camp Friends!
Honestly, camp friends are the best friends! The best bonding and laughs happen over a rainy day hike, cabin chores or a talent show skit.
- Cookout!
The simple goodness of hamburgers and hotdogs with your favorite people and a picnic on the field. Frisbees flying, campers playing and the sound of the Mills River run through my mind as one of the most incredible memories we share each week.
- Camper Choice!
This is your day to do what you love, and the memories to be made are endless. Whether you love horses and head out on a trail ride or an overnight in Biltmore, or if you are a paddler and cruise the French Broad or Cascade lake for the afternoon, these memories will last a lifetime.
- Dolly’s Ice Cream!
You haven’t tasted ice cream until you’ve been to Dolly’s. It is hard to explain this to a non-camper, but this is the best ice cream you’ve ever tasted after a hot summer day.
- Campfire Songs!
Nobody does it better than Camp Highlander! Campers and staff singing and dancing to our favorite songs like BLT, 500 Miles or Brown Eyed girl – only at camp can you be so silly and no where will you have more fun.
- Campfire Traditions!
As a camper, I loved the traditions of camp. There is no tradition so rich as our Sunday night campfire to spark the flame of camp in our hearts. From the lighting of the creed torches to the announcements of honor campers and cabins to the close of singing and humming taps. And to top it all off…cookies and milk!
- EPs!
This is simply magic before our eyes at camp. From Country Fair, to Monte Carlo, Cabin Challenge, Talent Show and Dancing with the AC…I am forever amazed at what the teamwork of a cabin unit can do to steal the show!
- Day Hikes!
Don’t you love to adventure with your friends into the beautiful Western North Carolina mountains and see the waterfalls at Looking Glass Falls or the valley below at the top of Black Balsam. I can’t wait to do this again this summer!
- Square Dances!
From the cotton eyed joe to the do-si-do, these nights are a timeless tradition of camp that are so much fun. I love to sit on the stage and watch hundreds of feet doing Footloose until we all fall down.
- Cabin Talks!
This is one of the most wonderful times at camp. When all is quiet and many have gone to sleep, the late night cabins chats with your cabin mates and counselors are magical. Only at camp can you grow so close to your friends, like a brother or a sister, as you share the daily journey of activities, EPs, cabin clean-up, competition and fun.
These are the memories to last a lifetime. This is what you love about camp. This is why you keep coming back. This is what makes you a lifer!
About Karl and Shelley Alexander
