Good evening farticle readers! Today was another wonderful day here at Camp Timberlake that was jam-packed with fun from start to finish! We started our day today with a cool and cloudy mountain morning. The air was fresh from the rain the night before, and luckily that rain didn’t stick around for the day, so we were able to enjoy the day outdoors and beat the heat with the help of the lingering clouds. We headed to breakfast and had some delicious breakfast sandwiches and sausage, and of course all of our favorite cereals. 

 After breakfast, we headed to chapel and had an awesome line-up of some of my personal favorite songs with some sick dance moves, followed by a true story told by Caleb that had a great message and also helped teach our mountain bikers why it is important to only shift gears when they are pedaling!

While the rest of us were cleaning our cabins (Tiger Tooth and Stomper’s Knob did the most cleaning and got perfect 10’s), A group of adventurous kayakers including Claude C, Asher C, Andrew G, Geo P, Wilson F, Wickerham C, and Wachob A embarked on a journey to the Tuckaseegee River, where they conquered its rapids with their kayaks and paddles. We also had another group of travelers armed with bow and arrows on a mission to Camp Merri-Mac to go win the archery competition for the eighth time in a row! The score was close, and an all-time performance by Matthew A with a score of 288 out of 300 helped propel Timberlake to the top.

The people that stayed at camp had a pretty awesome day too. Down on the lake, some swimmers swam and some swimmers that swam very well were rewarded with some bars, with Cian M getting his Bronze, Marco L and Stephen G getting their Silvers, and Knox W getting his GOLD! Staying at the lake, our kayakers were having an awesome time practicing their skills and training for the whitewater. Jameson S is an absolute natural at kayaking and he got his roll in his very first kayaking class on his first try! Leaving the lake, we head up to the pickleball courts where we had some intense but friendly competition, and Liles F, Richard F, and Matthew A got their Bronze, and Thomas L got his silver. Moving further up the hill to the fencing pavilion, Charlie C completed his 5 before 15 and secured his silver. Last but not least, the Appalachian Trail better watch out because over at backpacking our campers learned the ins and outs of traveling by foot in the woods with a backpack, and David C got his silver!

After our activity periods we settled in for a  country fried steak dinner. We then set out to play commando and the rain started to set in. I think I jinxed us because it started raining shortly after I wrote “luckily the rain didn’t stick around for the day” in the first paragraph of this farticle. We also had a Junior Camp overnight trip set out to the shelter at Merri-mac with Bryson A, Thomas R, Richard F, Braxton B, Robert R, Marshall S, Andrew M, Theo L, Owen M, Ford C, Beckett A, Reid L, Everett K, Tyler T, Colin G, Oliver M, and William S. If you couldn’t tell by the numbers, the junior campers were very excited about the chance to go on an overnight trip!! Lastly, we have a group of teenage campers setting out to sleep in the woods tonight. Stay tuned tomorrow when we will follow up on how the night went for both of those groups as well as all the great things we have in store for our last full day of session 3A. It’s been a pleasure!

Signing off,

Jackson Dreier

Whitewater Rafting Legend

Big Slaty Resident