Summer Fun: Camporee!

23.  Go horseback riding.

We went to the Girl Scout International Camporee at the camp east of Hartford in beautiful hilly, wooden terrain. From the moment we got on the bus and sang songs all the way into camp (the Shark song and Herman the Worm song), it was quite the GS experience.  There were girls from all of the state, the region, and several countries, including Canada, Australia, England, Japan, Nigeria, and Ghana.  But before visiting the countries' tents, we hauled all the way up to the corrals so the kiddos--yes, brother tagalongs, too!--could ride ponies (that seemed pretty tall to me).  We had to wait a bit but soon they were in their helmets and in the saddles, being led around the ring, smiling the whole way.  Afterwards, they had a better appreciation for Olympic equestrian events!  Then we headed back down (past archery, which you have to be 10 to do) the hill towards the lake.  And we went canoeing!  Yep, the two moms with back trouble gamely paddled the kids around the lake.  I thought we did pretty well, considering I hadn't been in a canoe since counselling at Girl Scout camps in the 1980s and Mama had never been in one!  But we didn't hit anyone and managed to maneuver where we wanted to go, getting up enough speed to be interesting.  Funny how the strokes came back to me.  I think I was having more fun that the kids!

Afterwards, we ate lunch from various trucks from local restaurants--a grilled cheese truck and a taco truck with portobello fajitas--we wandered the international displays, talking to Girl Guides from York and Cleveland in England and to the huge Canadian contingent from all over (including the Northwest Terriotories) and the friendly Australians who had so many swaps to share.  I liked their badge blankets (England and Australia mainly), where they place their fun patches and badges from previous levels.  And there was food!  Scones, cucumber sandwiches, iced brown rice tea, and a comparison between US and Canadian Oreos (yes, they're different.  Our fillings are sweeter and grainier.)

Sis did the ribbon and the face, we did the glue-gunned eyes and tail.

But Sis's main focus was SWAPS, aka the little crafty doodads with pins and name labels that girls exchange by the dozens if not hundreds at these events.  In addition to some "I Love S'mores" she had leftover, Sis had a new bunny clothespin SWAP which we adapted from an existing pattern I found online--instead of using the pompom for a cartoonish nose, we put it on the side for a tail.  "Some bunny loves Girl Scouts!"  (She gave them all away before I got a picture but Mama says she saved one back somewhere).  Sis was so determined that she'd wander up to a pack of girls and proffer her bag, "Do you want to swap?"  I think she came away with 75 new SWAPS, including shirnky dinks, perler beads, cricut paper, felt bed rolls, all manner of beads and friendship bracelets, and, her favorite, a little box containing a bear!  Bud even got a few from (usually adult) SWAPpers who saw that he was left out.  It made me want my own SWAPS.

By then, the heat was getting to us and we'd done everything we really wanted to do, so we hopped back on the shuttle, which was pretty much empty.  "I wish there were singing on the way back, too," Bud declared.  And so I sang "Boy and a Girl in a Little Canoe" . . . and we headed home, with a stop at Chowder Pot for lobster, clam chowder, and fish and chips.  And chicken fingers.

It was quite a trip down memory lane for me.  I always loved camp and this one looked like my beloved Camp Agnes Arnold, with all its trees, lakes, platform tents, central dining hall, gravely roads, and shortcuts through the woods between activity sites.  As we left, a group of singalongers sang my favorite GS tune, "Barges."  A wonderful day!