Extreme Adventure Camp
On the week of June 14-18, campers at Shawnee Prairie Preserve participated in the “Extreme Adventures Camp”.
Campers arrived bright and early for camp Monday morning; their parents were given the rundown of what each day of camp would be about, what the camper’s were required to bring each day for camp. Campers were then introduced to the staff at Shawnee Prairie as well as the new intern, campers then introduced themselves and camp then got under way. Campers then piled into the van at the nature center and were on their way to Camp Yale. Camp Yale is a outdoor team building and leadership development site. After arriving campers were introduced to the guide that would be instructing them for that day, the first activity that campers did was to form a circle a beach ball was thrown to a camper they had to say their name and then pass it to another camper. After everyone said their name the game got harder now campers had to keep the ball in the air, and only hit it once. After a few times they were getting no where, finally someone spoke up and offered a suggestion and then that got the ball rolling. As the day went on the activities got harder, and others required a little more thinking on the part of the campers. Many of the campers had to go outside their box by either being in charge of the group for an activity, or just saying their opinion. But all campers rose to the challenge that was in front of them, even though it may have taken awhile they all did very well. The last activity of the day was going down the zip-line and everyone really enjoyed that activity.
On the second day of camp, campers as well as staff went paintballing down at I-70 paintball. I-70 paintball is located in Huber Heights. Many of the campers had never paintballed before, while others have gone a few times. A few of the campers were a little hesitant at first, but once they got out on the field and fired their gun they really took to the sport. Unfortunately there were Air Force ROTC cadets out on a training exercise and were using the main field, but campers got to use the air soft course which was equally as fun. Campers were allowed to join the Air Force cadets for a couple of games. At the end of the day all campers and even the staff were worn out, but all in all everyone really seemed to enjoy it.
The third day of camp was devoted to being on the water, particularly in kayaks, and even a little treasure hunting. The Darke County Parks staff took campers up to Lake Loramie. Again like most other activities done earlier in the week not to many had been kayaking before. Part of the day was just trying to teach the campers about paddling, and how to stay afloat. After lunch campers got back into their kayaks and were given GPS’s and some coordinates, these coordinates were used to find a treasure that someone had hid. This is also know as Geocaching, and is very popular. When the box is found the finder writes their name and the date. If you take something out of the box you are supposed to replace it something that belongs to you. Campers were also allowed to place their own geocache somewhere out on the lake, the name of the cache was called Desperate Attempt. That name was chosen because as the day went ton the winds slowly started to pick up making it hard to paddle. All campers really seemed to enjoy kayaking, and were sad when they found that they had to go back home.
Thursday June 17th campers headed out to Caesar Creek State Park where they would do an overnight campout. When campers arrived at their campsite they ate lunch, and then set up camp. Once camp was setup campers then went on a nature hike on some of the different trails at the state park. After the sun went down everyone was around the campfire, talking about things done earlier in the week. Once the moon came out Darke County Park Staff took campers out on a owl hike, though only a few owls were heard the billions of lightning bugs put on a show that amazed everyone.
Friday morning rolled around and campers slowly started coming out of their tents after hearing some loud and rude noises of cars in the parking lot. Campers got some breakfast in them and headed back to the nature center. Once back to Shawnee Prairie campers unloaded the van, and waited to be picked up to go home.
