Today is the 3rd and final day of Color War. It’s been a fierce but friendly 3 days of competition between Comedy and Horror. Yesterday’s rain let up after lunch so we were fortunate to be able to play the Sports before dinner. The winner of sports was grey Horror, but by only a few points.
Last night’s Lip Sync Battle & Music Videos was truly FANTASTIC! I kid you not, these campers and staff did a stupendous job choosing songs, choreographing them, and then performing them. The Horror team’s music video was aesthetically rich, gruesome in context, and perfect for their theme. The Comedy team’s video was cute and light hearted since hey, it’s comedy! Because both teams did a superb job with this evening activity, it was extremely difficult for our judges to choose a winner. Ultimately, the scored was drawn as a tie.
Yesterday’s decorum points went slightly more to the grey Horror team but again, only by a few points because both teams are truly going above and beyond in so many aspect of Color War this summer. With all of these points in place, and the recovered hatchet points added in from yesterday (Comedy found it), the team who was winning this morning at breakfast was,….drum roll please,….COMEDY by 73 points! It’s truly anyone’s game and it can go in either direction today with sports, our big annual apache relay, and Sing tonight.
And now onto all of today’s Color War events: We woke up to blue skies and cool temps that the sun burned off pretty early on. The temps reached the upper 70’s, which was perfect for running around for Sports and then doing the afternoon Apache Relay. But before I get to all of that, here’s a list of what everyone did for sports this morning: Group 1: Boys- dodgeball, Girls- musical chairs; Group 2: Boys- theater challenges, Girls- Gaga; Group 3: Boys- chess tournament, Girls- Chopped (cooking) & Kong Pong; Group 4: Boys- touch football, Girls- water basketball.
The winner of this morning’s sports goes to Horror but again, only by a small amount of points! Here are the scores as of lunchtime: 3147 to 3129, for a difference of 18 points, in favor of BLUE COMEDY!!! It was still anyone’s game. After lunch we had team meetings and then we hosted our sailing regatta and staff island swim meet that was previously rained out. Following that we went directly into our big Apache Relay. The Apache spans over the course of a few hours and it involves a couple hundred campers on each team. The relay entails a total of 167 tasks for each team to successfully complete. The kids run from one location to another throughout camp and tag a child in a specific department to do an activity/task. Once complete, they then tag another camper either in the same department or someone to then run to a different department to tag a child and perform another activity/task.
The Apache is a big camp tradition and it involves all of our departments here at camp, and then some! We include a whole lot of fun tasks such as eating saltine crackers and then whistling Yankee Doodle Dandy before tagging another camper to run to the next department listed on the schedule. Other fun activities in the Apache are kayaking around the floating raft in the lake, filling a cup of water using a teaspoon, saddling a horse, beading a bracelet, typing “Island Lake Rules” in different languages in the video room, self-hit a homerun on the baseball field, run to pioneering with a jalapeno pepper in their mouth (Oy vey!), drop in on the half-pipe in the skatepark, deflate a tire in mountain biking, sing the camp alma mater over the PA system in the office, and much, much, much, much more. Our counselors also have some difficult tasks to perform such as doing 100 push-ups or hitting a baseball over the fence on the ball field. The Apache Relay finally ends with all campers and counselors in the gym sitting on the bleachers watching a camper from each team successfully shoot a half court basketball shot.
The Apache Relay represents such a special thrill and excitement of summer camp tradition! It’s all about fun during this event here at ILC, and it shows. In the end, the blue Comedy team beat the grey Horror team by about 14 minutes. Below are just a few photos from the start and the end of the Apache. Please see our CampMinder page for many more photos from all of today’s events.
Color War closes tonight with our annual Sing. Each team is judged for their creative entrance into the theater. They then take turns performing a March/Fight song, a Comedy song, a Skit, an Alma Mater song, and then they present their team’s Plaque. The entire night is bittersweet and somber as Color War comes to an end. Everyone hugs, many cry, and while the final scores are tallied we play the camp alma mater so everyone joins together to sing.
And finally, once the scores are all tallied up, Oliver, who is in charge of Color War, will stand on the theater stage and announce how proud she is of everyone who participated these past 3 days. Then she’ll announce the winner of the Sing and the winner of Color War overall. The winning team will jump up and scream and go crazy with excitement. The other team will be sad for a moment but they’ll quickly get over it by the time they head to canteen. Since this blog is being posted prior to Sing, later tonight I will post the winner for all of you. Until then, ILC U THERE!
