"It is in all of us to defy expectations, to go into the world and to be brave and to want, to need, to hunger for adventures... To embrace change and chance and risk so that we may breathe and know what it is to be free."

There's no place like home....

The last all camp of the summer was organized by the third year PAs. 

They did a super job.

Wizard of Oz of course....

With 4 flying monkeys...

and a couple witches and a wizard...

the Wheel of Fun got stolen from the Dining Hall and the campers had to find it to help Dorothy get home... Obviously.

(Some of our costumes were clearly better than others, but that's not the point.)

In the last few days I spent at Camp Stonybrook over the weekend we talked a lot about 'home'.  We talked about Stonybrook and how crazy it was that our summer was done, and how the time passed so quickly but it also felt like the summer was a lifetime long.  We talked about other camps we have loved, other places we have called home, how temporary home can be.... and of course, we talked a lot about the places we consider to be our homes in the woods.

Maybe that's a bit weird.  That we have places in the woods we call home.  But its true.

Camp Whip Poor Will will always be my home in the woods.  I spent so many summers there, so many cold fall days and snowy winter nights.  WPW will always be a piece of who I am.

Tar Hollow will always be my home in the woods.  The state park/church camp where I spend a week each August.  Its a beautiful place where I have learned and grown and hear God's voice on many confusing days.

Camp Stonybrook is home in a way.  A crazy little camp where I laughed and lived and struggled through my summer.  I grew a lot there and learned a lot about who I want to be.

In the next couple of weeks I plan to head to one of my favorite "homes in the woods"... a more fluid place that covers about 2100 miles of the east coast.  Tar Hollow is up first.  Then parts of a trail I love.  Not sure yet which parts... or even that it will happen at all (perhaps I will head for a different trail?), but what I know is that I feel at home in the woods.  So, in the midst of the hard place I find myself, where things aren't what I want and I'm not sure how to get to there... perhaps for a while I can find some peace in the woods.

Cause the reality is... There's no place like home.

... and then there were none.

And then there were none...

no more days at Stonybrook with staff and PAs and crazy campers....

no more campfire songs and silliness...

no more early morning coffees in the dining hall...

no more singing hill or flag ceremony....

There are no more crazy hot days or impending rain storms.

No more crying children or randomness.

No more "Radar Reports".

No more canoe trips or high ropes.

No more schedules or number sheets.

Summer is done.

The PAs and most of the staff left today.

Camp is clean and tidy (except for the overflowing dumpster).

The last of the t-shirts and patches have been given away.

Life goes on.

What a strange, long, overwhelming, fun-filled journey it has been.

What a ridiculous experience.

Although the ad staff still has a few more days on camp to tie up some loose ends and paperwork, for the most part its finished.

Another summer at camp is done.

Crazy.