Camp is a cabin on a lake in Vermont. My great-grandfather on my fathers side of the family bought it for him and his children to run around in the summer time. My grandfather, aunts, uncles, cousins and now children of my cousins have grown up running around in the woods, playing in the lake, exploring the creeks and generally having a great time. In the late fall it was used for many years as a deer camp as well. We let the ice fisherman gain access to the lake and in return they make sure the place is taken care of. Camp hasn't changed much since the time it was bought. There is running water, but not hot water and you can't drink it, there are comfortable couches and chairs surrounding the wood stove, there is a galley style kitchen with some appliances from the 1960s, upstairs there is an open floor plan filled with lots of beds, the best part is the porch that faces the lake. Camp isn't insulated, when the wind blows outside you can feel it on your face inside. At one point we had over 20 people stay the night. Camp is much more than walls, floors, couches, dishes and a stove. Camp is a place of family bonding, fun, but most of all love.
Camp-itus is an illness that occurs to people who know and love camp and miss being there. It's like an itch that won't away and especially after a long winter everyone in my family has camp-itus. The only way to cure this illness is to go to camp. It is tradition for my family to go to camp in mid April around the time for my and my dads birthdays. My dads birthday is the 15th and mine is the 21st. Typically we are the last ones to leave camp and the first ones to open it. Abbie and I were the first to arrive on Friday and I able to make a fire in the stove without kindling. I felt accomplished. Starting a fire in the cold stove is hard, doing it without kindling is even harder.
We had a great night and I made some amazing pizza (a specialty of mine) for Abbie and I. We had a good night catching up and sitting by the stove. The next morning we work up and got to cleaning. Mice enjoy living at camp in the winter and so the cabinets are full of mouse poop. Abbie and I armed ourselves with bleach, sponges (they were bought just for this purpose and then thrown away), and paper towels and began from one end and worked our way to the other. Before anyone arrived camp had been cleaned. The weekend went well, my Aunt Patty, Aunt Peggy, Uncle Randy, Uncle Greg, my cousin Nathan his girlfriend Mikayla came and celebrated. It was bitter cold outside and the ice wasn't going to go out for another week. Many people woke up cold and when we went out to the lake to get a bucket of water I found I had to choose a new spot because the spot I was using before had frozen over!
Even though it was cold and the stove doesn't really heat up the camp 3 hours everyone had a very good time. Coming back from a winter and opening camp is more like coming home rather than going on vacation. The place is filled with happy memories from generations. I've been told by many of my friends that they like it, but can't explain why. I think its because places have memory. They hold the emotions of those who have come before. This is why people love camp, because it loves them back.
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