We spent last week up at Camp UniStar. It's located on Star Island in Cass Lake. It's approximately 20+ miles east of Bemidji, MN.




I think it took us about 4 or 4.5 hours to get up there (including a stop for lunch). The girls did surprisingly well considering this was the longest car ride they'd been on so far. Borrowing a portable DVD player helped, too.

The week's program was "art and knitting" and Shelly was the knitting instructor for the week. She would teach a class for a couple hours every morning. While she did that, the girls and I would participate in the children's program that the camp provides. Sophie was too young to participate, Julie was probably just old enough. Activities for the younger kids included a couple hiking trips around the camp, tie-dying t-shirts, making pretzels, making paper, story time, and other miscellaneous activities. Overall, I thought the children's program was well thought out and run. The staff that were in charge of it did a great job.

The rest of the time was spent as a family. Well, aside from early afternoons. Shelly would usually try and get Sophie down for a nap right after lunch, so I would take Julie into the "CP" ("Children's Program") room and we'd either read books or color or something else.

Which reminds me. One of the stories that was read to the kids was "The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew It Was None of His Business" by Werner Holzwarth and illustrated by Wolf Erlbruch.

It was a cute story about a mole trying to figure out who took a poop on its head as it popped out of its hole to see how the weather was. It should be bundled with "Everyone Poops" by Taro Gomi.



So, the afternoons were family time. If the weather permitted (more often than not), we spent the late afternoon swimming. I got to try out kayaking for the first time and fell in love immediately with it. I managed to get out to kayak on my own for an hour or so a couple of times.

The camp has a tradition where each cabin hosts a "happy hour" before dinner time. More often than not, the hosting cabin provided snacks and some beverages (usually wine, and juice for kids). That was actually a pretty nice thing because it gets the campers to mingle and get to know each other.

The actual meals provided by the camp were pretty good too.

All in all, the week that I thought was going to be long and excruciating turned out to not be so long or excruciating. I did end up having a good time and got to meet some very nice people too.

We may return sometime in the future. Maybe when Sophie is old enough to attend "CP" without parental supervision.

But, I am glad to be home. Mainly because I went into an unintended news blackout while at camp. I returned to "civilization" not knowing what in the world was going on.