It was a beautiful day here at Timberlake. The campers got to celebrate the best camp holiday, Cowboy Joe Day! On Cowboy Joe Day, the campers do everything backwards. The day starts an hour later than normal, the campers are woken up with nutdos and cow juice (donuts and chocolate milk) before they go to play the evening activity first thing in the morning.

This morning the game was BATTLEBALL, a camp favorite. It’s just like dodgeball, but even more epic. They then do their activities in reverse order, have breakfast for lunch, and have chapel and the morning yell in the evening. After chapel the campers will make their way up to Spencers Green for the County Fair. Here they will get to do all sorts of fun stuff, like: inner tube sumo wrestling, counselor skeet shooting, go down a giant inflatable slide, sink their counselors in the dunk tank, enjoy a refreshing snow cone, play some soccer or basketball, or compete in any of the other small competitions we have going on tonight.

There was a lot of excitement in activities today as well. Archery, as always, was the best activity of the day. Many of the campers brought different items to shoot at today, like balloons, old pottery, and other miscellaneous items. There were also many campers working on their bars. Theo T has been working on his gold in archery this summer, which is considered by many to be the hardest gold at camp, and he got a grouping at 40 yards today. This is extremely impressive, many of the archers that come to Timberlake do not make it to 40 yards. Today in Field Sports they played World Cup, which is a soccer based game where everyone is trying to score goals and you can only move on to the next round if you score. Team France won today. Down at the pickleball courts they were also working on their bars today. Tommy F has been working hard all of the third session to earn his gold and he finally got it today after beating a counselor in a 1v1!

Sometimes during free time the campers are lucky enough to challenge our resident Connect 4 Champion, John Menendez, to a best 2 out of 3 match. They must beat John in the first game in order to continue the match so that everyone has a chance to play each session. Today John was bested by Jack C and Mac G! One of the big projects over the last few years has been the construction of the new shelter, Animal House. This has been a Greybeard only project as it is quite difficult, but has been a great experience for the campers over the last few years. The Greybearders worked on the shelter today during our last two periods. The shelter is awesome because it allows us to take some of our younger campers on a camping trip that doesn’t involve anything super difficult or for them to have prior knowledge of camping. Tonight junior camp is taking a group to the shelter to have smores, camp out, and have breakfast cooked over the fire in the morning. The guys going on the junior camp campout were Abel F, Peter M, Cal T, George S, Hudson P, Grant B, Bo R, Gage S, Stewart M, and Charlie C.

We also took out some senior camp overnight trips today. Richard F, Thomas R, Sean A, Baine B, Wilson F, Nick Q, David L, Sam H, Steele G, and Bay J left for an overnight climbing trip ant Raven’s Rock and Rocky Knob and they are being joined by Chase O, Reynolds A, Baxter L, Elliot A, and Wyatt B who are mountain biking at Rocky Knob. Robert R, SJ G, Chris J, Reid S, Ford C, and David C all went kayaking at the Tuckaseegee River today. This is one of our rivers for kayakers who are just starting off on their kayaking journey. Everybody did great on the river and Reid S, David C and Robert Ro nailed their combat rolls. Way to go boys!

The dunk tank has been emptied, the inflatable slide deflated, sno cone machine switched off and a peaceful calm has settled over the mountains. As the boys settle down in their bunks for a great night’s sleep it’s hard to think how today could have been any more fun. We can’t wait to see what tomorrow will bring!

Signing off,

Jake Highfield

Junior Camp Sensei

Expert Archer

Black Bear Supporter

Fun Enthusiast