As long as I get my root beer!
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2025
FIRE CIRCLE circa 10:30pm—The cricket choir shimmers through the night air as a small group of counselors whisper around the Night Watch’s campfire. “Lights out” was given a few minutes ago, so now all that can be heard from the tipis is the faint murmur of lullabies and stories. The fire crackles emphatically, popping occasionally. The flames themselves are clearly audible in the quietude of bedtime. I tilt my notebook toward the fire for some semblance of writing light.
“I really spooked some kids a good amount,” says Improv Instructor Mars Francis, still giddy from her performance as the Grim Reaper during tonight’s game.
“I heard you made a camper cry,” jeers Tightrope Instructor Ro Davidson.
“Okay, but there was a bunch of other stuff going on for them,” defends Mars.
“I know, I’m just playing,” cedes Ro.
“I think that was my camper,” says Songwriting Instructor Zora Skelton, casting an ominous thousand-yard stare through the fire.
Two hours prior, this entire Tipi Circle, as well as the rest of downtown Camp, was alive with a cacophony of riotous children, spurred on by intense movie soundtracks and live commentary announcers. It’s incredible what some fake money and a couple of oversized 20-sided dice can do to the human psyche. We call the exercise Adventure Night. Before lights-out, I held a few post-game interviews with members from the top three winning tipi groups, Yellow, Ultraviolet, and Flame.
“The strategy is to do the easy games: Limbo, Rock-Paper-Scissors, things like that,” said Farah, 9, Yellow Tipi. “The night was fun, like seven-out-of-ten. If I was in charge of Adventure Night, I would lower the ropes on the Spiderweb Course. They were way up here and they said we couldn’t go under them.”
“We didn’t really have a team strategy, we just went for it,” said Kai, 8, Yellow Tipi. “We had some money left over from last session, so that helped. My favorite site was the Obstacle Course because it was so easy. The hardest site was Crate Ball, and I stayed away from Hose Trivia—I didn’t want to get wet!”
“I tried my best to do the Stilt Pole Ring Toss, and Hose Trivia,” said Cozmo, 14, Ultraviolet Tipi. “I tried giving the answer ‘Naked Grandma’, like from the famous Family Feud clip, and that got me the hose real quick. I’m really honored to be in the tipi that had the biggest tipi sign of all time,” he said, referring to a Camp-made movie from 2008 which we screened at the end of the evening.
“Don’t throw rings as far as you can; that will get you banned,” warned Gage, 14, Ultraviolet Tipi. “My advice is to spend your time at Jeopardy, aka Pardy-Jeop, aka Hose Trivia. When I did Crate Ball I was dropping buckets like Curry. I probably made like twenty bucks at that site.”
“Side-quests are good, but you don’t want to go on a wild goose chase,” said Peyton, 14, Ultraviolet Tipi. “You have to be selective. The Macarena was low-hanging fruit. We put our tipi-mate Jack in the dice line and just fed him money so he could keep our place. Here’s an Alexander the Great quote for your blog: ‘And he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer’.”
“My strategy was to get in line and let people feed me money,” said James, 12, Flame Tipi. “Also, I’m surprised Green didn’t win. They cheated really good! It was super fun. I’m happy as long as I get my root beer!”
“Before the game even started, there was a rumor that Jaden had a big bag of Winnarain-Bucks somewhere in the Costume Barn,” said Jonah, 13, Flame Tipi. “Then these two boys found it and took half, and then a girl found it too and put the rest in her backpack. Then during the game, a counselor was trying to pay with things with money that was still wrapped up—proof that they were cheating!”
“I basically just did the Spiderweb Course, it was so easy,” said Gavi, 12, Flame Tipi. “At the end we couldn’t to our final roll, so we should have come ahead of UV. People had been talking about how ‘Tipi Clean-Up Night’ was actually Adventure Night, but when we gathered at first, they kept the cleaning bit going for so long, I thought we were actually gonna do it. When the bag that was supposed to have the tri-sodium phosphate in it actually had the giant dice, that was a good surprise.”
Stay hydrated,
—J. Payseno, Editor
