Summer Camp Heaven at Walden West

Ah, the joys of summer. Hours of extra daylight, cold lemonade, concerts in the park.  And spreadsheets to keep track of which kid is at which summer camp which week. 

The reason I had only one child was to simplify that spreadsheet.  

Every year, around January, I list the weeks of summer on a sheet of notebook paper. Then, IN PENCIL, I start filling in possibilities. Eventually, the summer takes shape, but only by putting a stake in the ground by choosing the most important summer camp first and developing the rest of the schedule from there. This is the only time I’m thankful summer vacation is shorter by a few weeks than when I was a kid. In fact, it makes me wish for one of those year-round school schedules.

Let's back up a bit.  We're working parents, so summer camp is really just a pretty word for daycare. It isn't an option -- it's a necessity. Well, not so much now that my child is entering high school, but as the old saying goes "idle hands are the devil's tools", and the devil apparently plays Crysis 2 many hours a day.

My daughter has been to a variety of camps over the years, and she’s got a dresser full of T-shirts to prove it.  But only one camp has made the cut every year since second grade, and it has always been the stake in the ground.  It's the camp where the goal seems to be singing silly songs, getting extremely dirty, and hanging out in a breathtakingly beautiful location.  It's Walden West, located in the hills of Saratoga.

If you are looking for a camp where your child learns academics, don't look here. Is your goal to get your kid that athletic scholarship to college? Then do not apply. But if like me, you want your child to enjoy summer, sing about banana slugs, and maybe get a tad of environmentalism crammed into her unsuspecting head, this is your place.

Apparently, I'm not the only one with these goals, because Walden West has always been the most difficult camp to sign up for. Back in the olden days (way back in 2006), Walden West took your application and money via the Pony Express – I mean, the U.S. Postal Service.  They accepted applications beginning March 1. If you didn't have those forms -- and your check -- on their desk that day, it was time to choose between “Amazing Aquatics” and “You Can Cook!” at your neighborhood daycare.

Then Walden West got high-tech.  Sign-ups happened on-line at precisely 7:30 a.m. on March 1. The first year they had on-line sign-ups, I'm pretty sure their server melted into a blob of silicon from the overload.  I suspect they spent weeks cleaning up the partial applications and payments, or double payments from anxious parents who weren’t sure their first attempt worked since hitting enter on your computer usually resulted in the dreaded eternal hourglass.

Walden West got much better at the on-line sign-ups for the next year, but you still had to be poised at a computer at precisely 7:30 a.m. on the appointed day.  I pictured moms and dads all over Silicon Valley, cracking their knuckles, opening to the proper web page, watching an atomic clock. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.

Almost all weeks were full by 8:00 a.m. Miraculously, I always got the week I wanted. With Walden West in the bag, I could plan the rest of summer.

And so it went for six years, until entering 8th grade, my daughter was ready to be a Leader-In-Training.  For these coveted slots, I manned one computer and my husband manned another. We worked out a protocol for all eventualities. We communicated using headsets (although we were sitting next to each other). All Leader-in-Training slots were gone by 7:35.  Maybe going for the athletic scholarship would be simpler.

But every time I go up to Walden West for the Thursday night barbecue and the “amazing camper tricks”, I know the crazy sign-up and inconvenient location are worth it. The director, Badger, probably has a real name that he puts on his income taxes, but I don’t want to know what it is. He is forever the amazing Badger who personifies Walden West with his calm but zany and fun-loving nature.

Badger is assisted by the incredible Scooby, who can get 200 children to listen while speaking in a soft voice. Kids of all ages love his famous Scooby stories, which he tells every day at lunch in the shade of the Scooby Tree. The rest of the counselors are also actual grown-ups, assisted by high-school volunteers. Guess whose daughter was one of those this year?  

When my daughter goes off to college, what then?  I know.... I’ll still go up to Walden West on summer Thursday evenings for the barbecue, and to sing the Banana Slug song a few more times.