by Becca Bland, GRP Counselor
Today, in addition to being the first day of August, was also the first GLP day. Campers signed up for GLPs, Group Learning Projects, on Sunday, and have been looking forward to them eagerly. One group departed base camp by running into neighboring DuPont State Forest, and then proceeded to visit the waterfalls. A couple of groups had water based GLPs, with one doing a combination of tubing and stream ecology in the Davidson River, and another doing a climbing and water combination at Big Bradley Falls.
I spent the day with about 12 campers learning about geocaching. In the morning we learned all about the sport, and also learned how to use our GPSs. We split into two groups and took turns hiding four caches out in our front field, recording the coordinates, and trying to find them by GPS. During lunchtime we were able to see how the mural-painters were doing; a group spent the day painting a beautiful farm themed mural under the lodge, and also re-painting a few of the lodge chairs.
In the afternoon, we embarked on a 9 part geocache scavenger hunt. We walked for a couple of hours around the Preserve, found each cache, decoded the clue, and found the coordinates that lead us to the next cache. We returned back to Base Camp to find the final cache and found the belt-makers along the way. This GLP group made belts all day, working with leather, staining it, and creating different patterns in the leather. Patterns ranged from a camper’s name to intricate flowers.
After we found the final cache, full of little trinkets campers could take in order to start their own collection of things to trade in geocaches, we searched for some caches around Base Camp that campers in previous sessions had hid. We then finished out the day by creating our own geocaches and finding niches in which to hide them.
The day was a nice break from the usual day at GRP, and everyone is looking forward to sharing stories during dinner. Tomorrow, our last full day of the session, will be another full day of GLPs, and campers are very eager for those activities.
Off to Pirate Night!