Last night, before an excellent fireworks show, campers were read a special Camp Timberlake bedtime story: The Legend of Cowboy Joe. This legend has always forewarned the coming of a special day at camp: Cowboy Joe Day! Where everything is backwards, nothing makes sense, and everyone has a blast! Campers were awoken an hour late to delicious donuts and chocolate milk, and, after a quick cabin cleanup, the boys headed up to the Mark to play some Battleball! Duking it out on the basketball court, good times were had by all.

Moving on from there, in true Cowboy Joe fashion, campers went off to fourth period first! In activity news:

  • Rees R. completed a full Murph in less than an hour (1 mile, 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 squats, and another mile!) This is a huge feat and we are super proud of Rees! 
  • In rocketry class David K built an awesome spare parts rockets. This means instead of using a kit, David just used recycled parts and came up with his own design. Way to go!
  • In climbing class Gehrig C and Boone R did some great work on their bouldering routes. 

We also sent out some excellent trips today!

  • Tyler J, Owen M, Mac D and EJ B went fly fishing over at Curtis Creek.
  • Griffin W, Geo P-C, Joe L, Ford B and Gavin W styled the Nantahala river in their kayaks.
  • Freddy V, Evan L, Davis O, Henry O, Wes D and Jack P crushed some single pitch climbing out at Rumbling Bald.

Lunch was a bit backwards, of course, as we enjoyed a delicious breakfast style meal of chicken and waffles, fresh blueberries, and a yummy grit bar. After lunch, we announced the winner of cabin clean up…Finch’s Landing! They took the crown today with a strong score of a 9.25.

This afternoon we got to witness one of my very favorite events here at Timberlake: the Adventure Race! The Adventure race is a 3-4 hour challenge that takes place only once a session. Teams of 4 compete in a series of challenges all around camp. These challenges are physical, mental, and strategic in nature. The courses are always extremely challenging but also a ton of fun. This session we had five brave squads take on the course. Those were:

  • “Dub Squad” – Matthew A, William V, George S, and Chance S
  • “Delta Squad”- Bay J, Radford W, Max W and Oliver G
  • “Bearded Ones”- Grady R, Carter W, Hayes S, and Tristan W
  • “Lunch”- Ben A, Grant S, Davis P and Thomas M, 
  • “Lazer Tigers II”- Will S, Joey B, Peter Q and Declan Q

After a delicious dinner of pulled pork sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, roasted corn and a green salad, we marched outside for the Evening Yell. That’s right, we usually yell in the morning, but today it was an evening yell, followed by an energetic chapel. Devon C shared a great story to illustrate how Jesus is able to clean us up when we get ourselves covered in a mess, and then it was off to the WORLD FAMOUS TIMBERLAKE COUNTY FAIR. 

That’s right folks, we have our very own county fair here at camp. There’s so much to do it’s hard to list it all here. Tonight the campers enjoyed a giant water slide, a dunk tank, counselor skeet shoot, appalachian sumo wrestling, lawn bowling, corn hole, snow cones, spike ball, and so much more. 

One thing is for sure, we will all sleep well tonight. Thanks for tuning in to read all about another great day at camp. We’ll see you tomorrow!

Teddy Oakey

Further In Counselor

Astronomy Aficionado