Coming Home

In 2011 I left Girl Scout resident camp thinking that it was the last time I would spend my summer at camp. The last time I would sing songs, lead hikes, coach campers through high ropes and attend weekly cookouts. I left camp behind that summer because society and those around me told me that it was time for me to “get a real job”. That you couldn’t get paid year round to do outdoor things.

It turns out, I and they, were wrong.

In 2018 I returned to the camping world. But this time, it was in a different state and a different camp. I can’t begin to list all the feelings I had leading up to my trip to Utah. I was curious, excited, and a little scared.

What if things had changed in the six years I’d been out of the camping world? What if I didn’t know as much as I thought I did? What if I discovered that the thing I loved so much, that I thought I’d said goodbye to for good, no longer brought me the happiness it had all those years ago?

Luckily, none of those things were true.

Once I was back in the camping world, it felt like I had never left. The minute I walked up the path to Trefoil Ranch, those six years didn’t matter. I was in a new state and a new camp. I didn’t know a single person. I hadn’t even physically met my boss yet! But that didn’t matter. They knew the same songs and games as me. They had similar camp experiences. I saw similarities between the staff I would be spending my summer with and my camp family back in Oklahoma.

By the end of the season, I spent eleven weeks at Trefoil Ranch, and I dreaded the idea of saying goodbye to it, the staff and the horses. I cried, no I sobbed, as I drove down I-15 for my journey back to Oklahoma.

I found a home at Trefoil Ranch. Working there renewed my faith in outdoor programming. But the biggest thing? It lit a fire in me. A fire that since I returned to Oklahoma, continues to say “you can and you will, find a way to do this.”

For that, I am forever grateful.