The second day of camp was much better than the first. What a difference a bit of food and rest makes.
On the first day in class each student is assigned a large (about 5’ x 10’) desk. Adults find this much space a wonderful gift. The teens seem to get lonely with so much space and so five of them are crammed onto Ellie’s work table and it makes them all happy as little clams. It also allows them to collaborate. The bottom line is that it makes it so much more fun. Ellie is the only person in class with naturally straight hair and so that has been at topic of conversation.
There is one boy in class who is talented, serious and focused. Ellie says that the art he is producing is wonderful and well done. Two of the girls who appear to be friends even before they took this class are printing logos and images off of the internet and printing those. Ellie and her group of five seem to have compatible artistic styles that work together well. Ellie produced a fun shirt by herself on Tuesday and is working collaboratively with another girl for her next design. The group of girls at her table seem to have complimentary artistic styles. I am pretty sure this makes Ellie happy. I think she expected that all of the other students, excepting herself, would be talented like the boy is.
I spent much of my day exploring the Grotto. It is a particularly beautiful wilderness area with ice caves carved in granite by water erosion and a cascade of waterfall. It was a beautiful walk, though odd to be doing it by myself. I came to the ice caves just as it began to rain. I saw two women struggle to make it up and out of the caves. Then a group of kids had a hard time getting out as the rocks were becoming slick. Although I very much wanted to check out the ice caves, I fear that I would get myself stuck. If my husband had been with me, I would have done it, but getting stuck was simply too much of a risk. I decided to push on to the cascades.
I got soaked while I walked, but having a rain coat on, I was still okay. Once I arrived at the cascades I positioned myself under a group of trees and waited out the storm. I am told that storms move quickly through Aspen and so I trusted it would not take too long. As I waited I watched a group of kids and instructors from Camp Aspen try to zipline across the river. Between the wetness of the rope and the light body weight of the kids, they could not make it happen. Once the rain stopped and I was such the camera would stay dry, I began photographing the waterfalls and the interesting rock formations. I tried to imagine how my husband would see it. His landscape images are always amazing. I made a mental note to myself that I would like to look up more on landscape photography before I go out and do a lot more of it.
At the end of the day I picked up Ellie and we headed for town. Once again she was ravenous. We had dinner at Boogies and did a bit of shopping. Or rather, we mostly did a lot of looking. Aspen is a beautiful place that shows its wealth very plainly. By then it had begun to rain again and Ellie had devised a new sleeping arrangement. This meant that I wanted to be back at camp before dark so we left down a bit early.
Back at camp we removed the air mattress from the back of the van and replaced it with a cot. It looks like an odd sleeping arrangement, but one that might prove to be the most comfortable yet. Not yet ready to go to bed, Ellie and I retreated into the tent where we are keeping stuff. With the aid of the seats from the van and an electric lantern, we had a cozy set up. We talked, we drew and I read a little bit. Ellie focused on making plans for her next shirts. After conferring with her father, she has decided to make one that says, “The Fun Sucker” which is the nick name Larr earned this summer during his time with the youth trail building crews. Ellie was wishing we could watch a movie, but we were both happy to have a bit of undistracted time to share together.
No comments:
Post a Comment