From Texas to Disney to Camp

Eight days ago I woke up in Texas and hopped in the jeep with a ton of stuff. Stuff I thought I’d need along the way or at the end of my journey. Today, I reached the end, here in North Carolina, at the camp. I fell straight asleep last night, with only my pillows and teddy bear around me, leaving the rest to be unpacked today.

You’d be amazed how much a jeep wrangler actually holds, when it has to. I’ve dragged everything out, and it’s sitting on the bedroom floor of my room here in my cottage I share with one other person nestled snug inside the village that is at the tail end of camp. That was a seriously long sentence, but it’s where I am. Most resident camps have one or two permanent houses, with the “permanent” part being dodgy. This one has a full village, sturdy and new, clean and well made, ready to house year-round and visiting staff whenever they are needed. They are bright, cheerful and cozy, not to mention well equipped.

And they have a view of the camp, overlooking the horsepower garage and drifting down into main camp, a short walk away. There are even golf carts parked outside, to help the staff move through camp when they are carrying things, but I’ll try to walk more than I drive, because the place isn’t that huge.

Anyway, I came in last night, verging on midnight, and I wasn’t certain how well marked it would be. And the answer is that it is highly visible, through tasteful lighting that glows in the trees. Even in the dark you can’t miss the water tower painted like a hot air balloon with the camp logo on it. The second driveway is just as easy to find, which is marvelous. Getting settled in here over the weekend will be nice and easy and give me a chance to find my footing. Spending a week at Walt Disney World had me all revved up, and now I get a calm time to switch gears.

Disney was great, of course. I had rented a huge house over six months ago, when I was still in Iraq, so we’d have plenty of space to share with and avoid each other when we weren’t at the parks. We all haven’t been in one place in years and years. My big brother moved to Pennsylvania, and when he and his family came down to Texas to visit, I was in Iraq, so it was a nice time to enjoy each other. The parks were crowded as heck, though, but that’s to be expected since everyone and their brother were on vacation from school. It was still lots of fun and we all just waited our turns in line.

I’ll get pictures of camp and pictures from Disney up soon. I am in the middle of the woods though, and bandwidth is difficult at best. I’m now using a wireless network card through my cell phone company to try and connect, but I might have to put an amplifier on it to get a better signal. We’ll figure it all out though, as the time comes. Meanwhile, I’m off to unpack…