A dash for the win

There must be something in the air, because before I left the house to head down to the office today, I put on my running shorts and sneakers so that I could be ready at a moment’s notice to break into a dash. What’s in the air, you ask? Tomorrow is the annual Camp Highlands track meet which dates back to the early 1900s when Doc Monilaw was the camp director. The first event actually starts today with the cross-country race – a one-mile course around camp. Each entrant gets a point for his team, no matter what he places. Tomorrow the boys will compete Army versus Navy in several track events including the high jump, the long jump, 50 or 70 yard dash and shot-put. It all culminates in the giant action-packed relay. In the afternoon, they’ll have a choice in clubs and a picnic supper on the hill. Finally boys will participate in the world-famous Games on the Hill complete with the broom relay, tennis ball/parachute game (what is that called anyhow? Leave a comment if you know), egg toss and a pie eating contest (among other things).
Happily everyone is in camp for the festivities! Cabins 10, 11 and 12 just got back from their hiking trips in the Porkies. Cabin 11 saw two bears! How cool is that? Many of our seniors will leave for their big trips next week. The remaining Junior cabins will go to the Porkies for their hiking trip and the Colts’ canoe trips are next week as well.
We just posted a good smattering of photos on the gallery. Take a look!
And now for that run.
And on that note…
i ❤ CH // tracy b.

Preserving our history in images is one of the things we love to do at Highlands. From the early days, Doc Monilaw was often behind a camera, capturing incredible images that give us a little glimpse of the past. Tim Bachmann, as many of you know, has been scanning, editing and publishing photos from the 109 summers at Camp. If you haven’t had a chance to check out his books on Blurb, I highly recommend them. The CH Archives are also a great resource for photos.
In the name of continuing this great tradition, Mike Bachmann is the resident photographer, and has been so for the last few decades. He’s got a great eye and knack for the portrait. Take a look a the “Faces of 2011” gallery to see what I’m talking about. I am so inspired by all those faces that I made them the cover of the CaHiBo this year. It’s a great metaphor for what it takes to make a special summer at Highlands. I’d say it was the BEST summer in current memory. And instead of picking one photo or a few photos to try and capture that magic, we show each face, since each child brings their own special something to Camp. (disclaimer: We really tried our best to get every boy on there. We hope we got it right…?)
And now, we are posting several hundreds of photos to the gallery on the website. Please email us for a password (for the safety of our campers, we don’t make the galleries public). A couple of my favorites are Mike B. with the intertube on the scooter, Matt Schaible in a cowboy hat with Stella and Evelyn from the “Texas Round Up” day, and a handful of great shots of *my* guys, Judah and Andy. Do you have a favorite? Let us know!
Thinking ahead to 2012….will your face make the CaHiBo this year? We sure hope so! Until next time, fare thee well!    –Tracy B.

Version 4.0 of the Camp Highlands website is here, and man are we excited about it. We hope it will continue to be a tool for parents and campers with an improved photo and video gallery. You’ll have an opportunity to start a conversation with parents, campers and alumni on the blog. We hope it’s a great way for parents to connect and share ideas. It’s will be your one-stop shop for Facebook, Twitter and weather updates! Surely there will be kinks to work out along the way, so let us know if something isn’t working like it should.
Can you believe that www.camphighlands.com is 12 years old? In that time we’ve have four websites. Climb into our time machine as we take a look at the past websites…
[slideshow elements=”3″] [image link=”http://camphighlands.com/wp/wp-content/themes/camp-highland-for-boys/images/blog111911website1.jpg” caption=”Circa 1998: The site was the online brochure”] [image link=”http://camphighlands.com/wp/wp-content/themes/camp-highland-for-boys/images/blog111911website2.jpg” caption=”Circa 2005: A freshening up of the old site with a focus on FUN! (side note: that’s Benjamin Ericksen’s diving body!)”] [image link=”http://camphighlands.com/wp/wp-content/themes/camp-highland-for-boys/images/blog111911website3.jpg” caption=”Circa 2009: A big step forward with a blog!”][/slideshow] P.S. Online enrollment will be enabled in the next month. For now, download the enrollment form and email it to us. You can automatically fill it out in Acrobat, too. Give us a ring if you’d like to pay by credit card.