Camp Life

Here are some notes about Base Camp.  We were about 20 miles south of Morristown SD.  A forty minute drive to the nearest town, Lemmon SD, Population 1,169.  There are no missing digits in that number.  Lemmon was the closest grocery, gas station and hospital.  Morristown, the closest post office/bar.  Morristown is basically a granary marking the dirt road that takes us to base camp. 

This is what camp looked at on the first day.



Then as we got things set up.... first came the kitchen...tent....halfdome.  Where every meal was prepared for the three months.

 Then the Tepee's went up.  It was fun to watch and there is a local radio station on the res that Aljoe had playing while they worked.  It was interesting listening to native american chanting and drums while putting up tepees.  We also had some tents for people to sleep in but as soon as the tepees went up they were occupied.  A night later they were vacated as the mosquitos and daddy long legs were merciless where there was no netting.

Phil and the tepee skeleton





Here is Jo on the girls jungle gym.  If you're thinking "hmm, that looks like a roof" you are correct.  In the picture above you can see a house with a green roof and in front of it there is an underground house.  The girls played the entire summer on the roof of the underground house.  They put on plays, slid on it like a slide, sang songs and quizzed Phil, our security guard, mercilessly about anything that came to mind.  Phil would sit patiently in a chair at the doorway, watching the camp, watching the girls and keeping a keen ear and a shovel close by in case of snakes.



There finally came a day in July when Julia came rushing into the kitchen to tell me that she had just found out that Aljoe was an INDIAN!  Phil was sitting close by and laughing and asked Julia " If Aljoe's an Indian, what am I?" to which Julia replied, quizically "You're just Phil." Which made him laugh harder. 

The girls liked to invite Phil on their "picnics" in the back of the trucks.  He always wanted to know what they were bringing to eat.  They would dutifully list off all the food they could think of, to which Phil would reply "but I want barbequed dog!"  The girls would laugh him off  and tell him he couldn't have "BBQ Bob" (Bob was one of our camp dogs) It was after one such session that Joey came into the kitchen to tattle on Phil and she asked what we were having for dinner, probably trying to disprove something Phil had told her.  I think I put a bit of the fear of Mom in here when I replied, unthinking, that dinner was going to be Sloppy Joes.  And that started off a whole new round of picnic hilarity with everyone except, of course, Jo.



Julie in a favorite picnic spot

Here is camp as it looked most of the summer.  The motorhome was a great addition, especially having our own bathroom and shower.  

 Here is the camp shower.  It's fitted up with a solar water bag and it worked pretty good.  The only problem we encountered was the first night we had it up and running.  I was cleaning up after dinner and everyone was hanging about in the kitchen visiting when we heard Aljoe yell. 
"HEY, I'VE GOT SOME GIRLS OVER HERE!"
I stepped out of the kitchen in time to see two little girls hotfooting it away from their position crouched by the shower.  Oh, my.  They got a good talkin' too and were relegated to the motorhome when the shower was being used.  Though I admit to leading them in a little bit of catcalling and woohoooing out the motorhome window when Allen was in the shower. He never did open that door and give us a flash though.......


Aljoe in the shower.  Safe, this time.