It’s Opening Day! 

For us camp people, Opening Day is like Christmas morning, but even better. Getting the chance to welcome returning families back to the mountains and also to meet new families who are at Timberlake for the very first time is without question one of the best parts of being a camp director and today was no different. All morning long the echoes of “Welcome to camp!” could be heard reverberating all over our property and the smiles were almost as big as the Timberlake campfire cookies. 

After check-in concluded, each cabin grabbed their picnic lunches and found a place to relax and get to know each other over a delicious meal of bacon chicken ranch wraps, chips, apples and chocolate chip cookies. Not only was the meal tasty, but it was a great time for our cabins to get some early time together as a group. Our cabins really function like little families here and it’s awesome to see those bonds begin to form right away. 

After a quick dip in Lake Newcomb for the swim check, it was off to tribal initiation. We have two tribes here at Timberlake, the powerful Golden Eagles and the mighty Black Bears. On your first day of camp you are initiated into a tribe you will be a part of for life. Tribal competition is one of the best tools we have here at camp for allowing everybody to feel like an insider right away, and also to teach healthy, respectful competition. Today we initiated an outstanding group of new warriors, faithful to their tribe. 

Our new Black Bears are:

Harper B, Cooper C, Noah H, Maddox K, Finley M, Barron P, Samuel S, Edison Z, Oliver O, and Sawyer P

Our new Golden Eagles are:

Christian B, Thomas B, William B, Gionni D, Burns H, Owen L, Aedan M, Ford Z, Fitch W, JP T, Jack W and Harris W

After initiation we downed a delicious dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, roasted broccoli and breadsticks before we played our first evening activity of the session: Sock War!

If you’ve never played sock war before, picture a giant “capture the flag”-style game where players throw balled up socks at one another to tag them out and you’ll get the general idea. It’s a ton of fun and the score was too close to call tonight. Check back in tomorrow to find out which tribe came out on top. 

As camp winds down for the evening I can’t help but get excited for all the adventures and friendships and memories that lie ahead in the next two weeks. Be sure to check back in each night to read all about it, and thank you for sharing your sons with us this summer. 

Signing Off,

John
Director, Camp Timberlake

Sock War student

Free Swim aficionado

Proud Golden Eagle.