Camp Joan, Year 4, Day 5 - Aw Hail No

I'm really not qualified to post today. After finishing off our Orchard pizza from last night, Molly, Uncle Len and myself took the 50 drive to Jiminy Peak in the land of double consonants, Massachusetts. The only thing I did was ride the Mountain Coaster once. I was planning on riding the MC twice and the Alpine Sled once. Unfortunately for us, it rained before we showed up so the sled was closed. The only rides open was the Mountain Coaster and the Screaming Eagle.

Calm down, sir. You are having waaaaay too much fun.

Because of this, the wait for the Mountain Coaster was about 15 minutes long. Like a lot of things when I was little - the Star Wars prequels, Spongebob, spending time with my sister - it wasn't as fun as I remembered it. Waiting in line for 15 minutes and riding for two was just...eh. I called it a day there. Fortunately, Uncle Len and Molly had a much better time. The two went on the Screaming Eagle, which Uncle Len enjoyed, and the Mountain Coaster. I sat around and toyed with my phone as the ominous, ominous storm clouds rolled in like the mist before a Horseman of the Apocalypse shows up.

Think of the exact opposite of this.

After Len and Molly returned from the coaster, we figured we'd head in the tavern and wait out the rain. We ordered the Mile High Fries, which were good. For some reason, no picture of them could be found online. Here is an artist's interpretation.

Perhaps next year should be Camp Drawing

Once we finished up those, we started the drive home. While passing through Sand Lake, rain started falling. By the next town over, we could barely see through the sheets of rain. I thought it was really really bad until the hail started falling. Our windshield was like the side of a battleship; one wave of tiny ice rocks after another battered the glass. It slowed down for a second and I started to think Hey, it's slowing down! My brain was immediately punished for such silly ideas as the hail only got worse from there. When the cloud finally moved east as we moved west, the ground was like a recent snowfall.

We had pasta after we got home, I got new earbuds (old ones broke) and started watching Agents of SHIELD. Tomorrow, we get joined by Theo and Frank! Also tomorrow, our class takes a field trip to the humane society/shelter.

For more details on Jiminy, read last year's post here: http://campjoan.blogspot.com/2013/08/camp-joan-year-3-day-6-jiminy-peak.html

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"Since when did we need a quote of the day?" - Dan's Brain

Camp Joan, Year 4, Day 4 - Dan VS Horse

I've never been that great with horses. Something about them makes me...iffy. Maybe it's the fact that they're way bigger than me, the fact that their hooves could end my life with a slight stomp, or their weird teeth.

It's definitely the teeth.

Maybe it's the Headless Horseman, or how easily they can throw someone off, or John Elway, but horses have always creeped me out a little bit. Even the Denver Broncos logo makes me a little uneasy. 

The resemblance is uncanny.

Anyways, after our lesson wrapped up, we headed on up to Little Brook Farm, a horse farm hidden in Nowhere, USA Chatham. The farm had about 40ish horses, all big and hungry. The intern there, Erika, showed us around the place and told us the names of all the horses. The ones I can remember off the top of my head were Pilot, Casey, Shane, Frisco,Dakota, Pumpkin, Falcon, and a slew of other names. I'd also like to promise now that I will not be making any horse puns for the entirety of the post, despite my inner corniness urging me on. Right, so Molly and Joan were on talk duty while Uncle Len carried food buckets and I pushed around the cart. I even dumped some food into a horse bowl, too. 

I can't tell who's ears are bigger. 

I wanna say this horse's name is Pumpkin, but I'm not sure.

Afterwords, I tried mimicking a photo I was in yesterday that had me giving the thumbs-up next to the huge pile of hay. It didn't go too hot today.

What can I say? I'm photogenic!

The woman in charge, Lynn, was telling me about a summer camp they have here and that I could be a counselor. I very quickly explained that I like working with little kids, they just don't like me. She said it didn't really matter, and if I wanted to help out, I'd be welcome to. I'm thinking about it, but the big thing would be the blog name change. I wonder what we could do...?

...Okay, maybe not that.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Curse you, orange!" - Molly, during an unsuccessful stitch on orange (part of our Vet Science class)

Camp Joan, Year 4, Day 3 - Power Struggle

When Abe Lincoln was a child, he read by candlelight every night because he wanted to become a lawyer. I can tell you this because every history textbook in America will mention this without fail. I'm part of a new generation that's basically doing the same thing; thinking of what they're gonna write as soon as the stinkin' power comes back on.

Anyway, we woke up at 7:40, ate breakfast, and went on over to St. Rose. In our vet class today, we had a guest speaker come in to talk about rabies and being a veterinarian. Upon completion, Molly and I got in the car and we started our trek towards the Woodstock Animal Sanctuary, surrounded by the Catskills mountains.

Website here: http://woodstocksanctuary.org/

After an 1.5 hour drive, we arrived at the sanctuary, ready to work.

Our task was to pick up the combination of hay and poop and place it in two wheelbarrows. We were given pitchforks as our means of disposal. The job took about an hour and 45 minutes. Highlights include a goat and a sheep headbutting and a baby goat (goatling?) almost getting it's head stuck in the fence post. 

A job well done. After our ride home, I was prepared to have a nice, relaxing night with grilled cheese on cheese bread for dinner, Reese's PB cups for dessert, and watching Iron Man 3 before going to bed. After we got back, we had some thunder and lightning. No big deal, until the lights went out. Yep! No power for about two hours. It came back on a little while ago, though.

Tomorrow, we go to another animal farm. 

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"I feel like I could fight a goat." - Dan

Camp Joan Year 4: Dan Is A Dummy Edition (DOUBLE FEATURE!)

Hello! Welcome to Camp Joan Year 4! Sorry about the lack of post yesterday, but we had a long day that, unfortunately, was not very exciting. We were picked up at Wegman's at noon (after a blunder by my father had us traveling there one day early). We got our cereal and hit the road. The next several hours were not exciting in any way, shape, or form. Us campers arrived at about 415ish and unpacked and had delicious pizza. Molly watched Death Note and I watched Captain America 2 on my laptop.  After that, we ate ice cream and slept like the dead. We woke up at 7:40 the next day and went on over to The College of Saint Rose for our third iteration of classes.

This year's class was Veterinary Science. The class learned about fields in veterinarian science, including public health workers, surgeons, animal behaviorists, and the like. Not much else to say here, but we are going on a field trip on Wednesday.

After that, Uncle Len, my sister and I met up with Sara and Chewy at a park. We took a hike that was about an hour and a half. Molly sat around on the shore looking sad for a little while I tried to skip rocks on a stream. It was a bit of a workout. After that, we stopped at Lighthouse Ice Cream and Deli for ice cream. I had peanut butter pretzel, which was peanut butter, chocolate, and pretzel bits all swirled up in vanilla ice cream. Molly had a flavor called Play-Dough, which was (according to her) very good. It tasted like cake ice cream with little candy things, again according to her.

Tomorrow, we visit the Woodstock Animal Sanctuary and we will help volunteer and help out the animals there.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Uncle Len: "Does she have any experience being a vet?"
Dan: "No, I don't think she went to war."