"I just bought 3 boxes of Girl Scout cookies from my niece, which made me think back to when I was a Girl Scout selling cookies. I was telling my children about my girl scouting days. They were shocked that I could have been a Girl Scout for 15 years. I started as a brownie when I was in the second grade. I went all through to the twelfth grade as a member of a Girl Scout troop. Then I was a leader of a troop for 5 years. It was so much fun…. Not just selling the cookies, and not just eating them, but all the friends we made and shared those fun times with. My first experience camping was when I was in a Girl Scout troop. Without them, I never would have become a camper at all. My family was not a camping family when I was younger. We tried one camping trip and we borrowed a camper for it. This camper slept 6 people and was not big enough since there were 9 of us in my family, but we managed to squish 7 people in it. My brother and sister slept in the car…. NOT much fun and no space to stretch out. THAT was a fun trip! Since we are now older, we have all had our share of camping experiences, but it was being a Girl Scout that really got the camping bug going.”
"It's pretty cold out there, people!! I remember camping in February in Massachusetts. The first thing we would do after we got to our cabin, yes, it was a cabin.... with cots.... and a huge fireplace.... (It was great!).... was go back outside and get firewood. Trying to find firewood that is covered with snow was pretty challenging. Trying to find any wood that was even dry was impossible. So, we kicked around the snow, which was beautiful and sparkly by the way, and eventually found some wood. We dragged the wood inside the cabin and gathered around the fireplace. Oh, there was no other way to heat the place up, so getting the fire going was key in this whole cabin-camping experience. Fortunately, the last campers in this cabin left a pile of nice, seasoned, dry wood for us. We got the fire going and kept it going non-stop for the days that we would be there. We would place the wet wood in front of the fire to dry it out. Every day we would spend some time gathering more wood so there would be enough for our stay. We also wanted to make sure that we left some wood for the next travelers that would be staying at this cabin. It sounds like we spent a lot of time gathering wood and not doing much else. You would be so wrong if you thought this. We also hiked, went ice-skating, sledding, played board games, cards, sang songs and told stories. It was great."
