I became a nurse ten years ago. My first job was at Camp Wicosuta in Hebron, New Hampshire. It is an all girls camp. Two of my friends from nursing school and I got jobs in the health center. I've never scrap booked about my time there and I didn't have a blog at the time. I won't include every picture from the summer I spent there but this post will have the basics about the camp.
The main office was at one end of camp. We picked up any mail and packages here.
Next to that was the mess hall where we gathered at the beginning of each camp session to check in all the campers, ate all of our meals, and gave medication to girls who had scheduled medications.
At the other end of camp was this large building that had the staff lounge, health clinic and bedrooms for the staff members.
This is the same building but showing the right side.
The staff lounge had a kitchen, TV, ping pong, and computers. Sometimes later at night, snacks and treats were served out of the kitchen for staff members. I appreciated the computers so I could keep in touch with family and friends. Marshall and I were dating and we emailed a lot.
This is a better view of the TV, ping pong and seats for eating.
This was a the health clinic's kitchen where we could keep snacks, juice, ice, gatorade or whatever.
This is the health center where I spent lots of times. There were four nurses total. We traded off who worked each day so at least one person always had the day off. We had shelves of personal medication for the girls and other medication like tyelnol, ibuprofen, etc. We also had lot of first aid supplies.
We had radios to communicate with other staff. We traveled around camp in a golf cart.
The infirmary was down the hall from the office. It was very large with at least twelve beds. There were two private rooms each with a bed. When Marshall came to visit me he stayed in my room and I slept in the infirmary. Throughout the camp sessions we would have girls staying in the infirmary for different sicknesses or injuries. Strep throat went around the camp and we had the girls who were sick stay there until they had antibiotics for twenty-four hours.
My room was above the clinic. Nothing fancy but had everything I needed. It got really hot near the end of the summer and so I bought a box fan for my room. There was no AC so it was hot. We had a laundry service for our clothes. Once a week we dropped off our laundry and the main hall and the next days it arrived back clean and folded.
There were lots of cabins for the girls all around the camp. Here is a picture of two of them. During the last week there was a break out of pin worms in one of the bunks. We had to bag everything up and have it deep cleaned to kill them all. Thankfully it didn't spread to any of the other bunks.
This is the stable. There was also a large arena to ride horses in. As nurses we got to swim in the lake, pool, play tennis and basketball and that was about it. I would have loved to ride horses there.
The dance room.
Tennis courts. These pictures are ten years old but some of the quality is so bad that you would think it was thirty years ago.
More tennis courts.
Rock climbing.
At the end of each session we had a huge carnival. Each bunk had a booth and there were lots of water activities.
When you think of summer camp you think of it being by a lake. There was a private beach on New Found Lake for the camp. It was about a quarter of a mile walk from the camp. The girls could canoe, swim, or go boating. Most nights we had a closing devotional on the beach with singing. It reminded me a lot of young women's camp.
The camp is in central New Hampshire in the White Mountains. This mountain next to the camp was called Bear Mountain and it had a road all the way up that was fun to walk up. The view of the lake at the top was beautiful! I road a bike around the whole lake on one of my days off. When Marshall came to visit we saw a bear on Bear Mountain.
I had fun seeing the sights on my days off. I love the bridges there.
There are so many beautiful rivers and waterfalls as you drive through the White Mountains.
It was definitely an eye opening experience working there. The girls ranged from ages 7 and up. Now that I have a seven-year-old I can't imagine sending him away for a whole month. I look forward to all the time we get to spend together during the summer. It has been hard sending him off to school each day.
I've always wanted to go back to New Hampshire and see the camp again. Since my sister Katie lives in New Hampshire now I'm excited that there's definitely a possibility of going back.
