Every year, CVCA takes all of the seniors to a camp for 3 days as part
of the celebration of graduation. This year was my first year on the
trip, which was May 16-19th. I had a good time, and I was especially
happy to get to room with the male senior Fools. They really are as
nuts as I had suspected, and it is my sincere hope that I fit right in.
We
got to the camp on Tuesday. I got to drive my own car, and had a good
time driving the hour and a half chatting with the female mriordan and
a visiting Caribbeaner.
This was a good thing, since the rain and busy schedule of activities
kept us from visiting with Caribbeaner much the rest of the trip.
My cabin had 6 guys in it (not counting me). 4 of the guys were Fools,
1 was a former Fool and someone I knew fairly well, and 1 was a friend
of the Fools that I did not know, but was a nice guy. The cabin seemed
to get along really well, and I never saw any problems.
In case you are wondering, we are drinking IBC Rootbeer. We managed to drink 48 bottles in the first 24 hours.
We
ate very well on the trip. The first night, we were treated to burgers
by our master burger chef. The cabin kitchen was small, but the guys
managed to make pizzas, fries, omelets, and more in the 3 days we were
there. We also had soda, 4-5 bags of chips, 6 boxes of Little Debbie
treats, and 6 boxes of cold cereal. And that was just for the meals in
the cabin. We were treated to a breakfast in our sister cabin, a pizza
party in the main lodge, and a really nice sit-down dinner in the
lodge. Needless to say, I gained 5 pounds which continue to be a nice
reminder of senior trip, even 2 weeks later.
The
weather was fickle. It rained a lot, but either lightened to a mist or
stopped raining whenever we had outdoor things scheduled. Here, I have
to give the kids credit. I never heard any of them complain about the
weather, even when they ran all around the camp on a scavenger hunt on
Wednesday morning while it was actually raining on and off. Some of the
boating trips were rained on, but I guess if you want to get wet in the
lake, you did not mind the rain too much. When it stopped raining
(usually for several hours at a time), it could be very pretty.
Being
with a group of teenagers meant that you can have competitions that old
fuddies like me would never do, but can laugh at students doing them.
The best example of this was the first night’s Feats of Strength, which
included eating a can of Spam raw, fishing for olives in a pan of
pudding using only your mouth, and the mighty Drink Gauntlet, which
included drinking nasty things such as kraut juice,
lemon juice, oyster
juice, birch beer, and other lovely concoctions. Why would students do
all these things? Because they got divided
into eight teams, and each event had points associated with it. So, you
would eat a whole can of spam because it would score your teams points.
Ain’t competition a wonderful thing?
Other
competitions included the (rather soggy) scavenger hunt that was
organized by the camp staff. (As an aside, the camp staff was AMAZING
and wonderfully helpful.) There was a team naming/team cheer
competition (which were quite funny), and the above-mentioned Feats of
Strength. Thursday’s competitions included games, suduko competitions,
horseshoes, and other things, but by far my favorite was the
tug-of-war. The kids were fierce in this one, and while size and
strength did matter some, there were still some upsets through the wise
use of technique and sheer refusal to lose (a few teams were helped by
the very slight downhill on one side, but that was luck of the draw and
the teams rotated sides every couple of competitions).
At the end of the day, the competitions resulted in the top three teams
(out of eight) got movie tickets. My cabin’s team came in fourth, which
I was pleased with.
There
were other activities to do over the three days. The lodge had a game
room (the female mriordan schooled me by winning over 10 games of ping
pong), a pool, a big-screen TV for the Cavs fans to watch the playoff
game. There was boating on the lake, and there was a soggy night game
of par-3 golf. There was organized paintball, “real” golf (as opposed
to par-3), and bowling (which included my 3 best games ever in
“big-ball” bowling, topping out with a score of 151. Of course, real
men from Maine prefer Candlepin bowling, but you can’t expect that in Ohio.)
We also could do individual things, like hanging out or playing games.
Mrs. mriordan and I played Cranium with some of our kids, and we won,
but at a cost. We ended up feeling old as we were the only ones to know
about songs by the Beach Boys, about Presidents prior to Clinton, and
other look-at-the-old-folks kinds of questions. Still, a win is a win. 
All in all, I had a good time on senior trip. I am very glad the Fools
asked me to go. My cabin was well behaved, and in general the kids
acted great (as far as I saw). Nice job, guys!
So, Mer and I went bowling today (real bowling – that would be candlepin bowling to those of you who were not lucky enough to grow up in New England). I was doing fairly well, and was on pace to maybe get a 90 (which is my oft-sought 9 pins/frame). After 6 frames, I had a 53 which was darn close to a 9/frame. Mer was struggling a little with a 31, and was saying she would be happy with breaking a 50. I, of course, dismissed her being able to make up 22 points in 4 frames, so I wanted her to do well, and I was concentrating on getting my 90. Needless to say, she was clearly sharking me. She got THREE spares in the final four frames, while I got two 9’s and two 7’s. So, I finished with a respectable 86, while my “I’m doing SO badly at this game” wife ended with a mere 93. Remind me to NEVER bet this woman.
One of the fun things about candlepin is that you don’t clear the pins between throws, so you can use the fallen pins (called “deadwood”) to help you out. I really like this aspect of the game.
Rest assured, even though candlepin is different than “big ball” bowling, you still get to wear the stylish shoes.
