Wednesday, October 12, 2011 by Anna.

We have a really cool new addition to our touch tank area - a mantis shrimp one of our campers dubbed Backflip.  Backflip was brought to us by a member of San Diego Yacht Club, who had caught him while she was fishing for whitefish for her dinner.  Not sure of what he was, she brought him over to us in a bucket, and asked us if we wanted him for our aquarium.  The obvious answer…yes!!!!

Note that I said we put him into the touch tank area…NOT the touch tank itself!  Mantis shrimp have incredibly strong, sharp front appendages that they use to attack and kill prey.  These intimidating claws can also slice off the fingers of an unsuspecting observer…not exactly something we want in the “touch” tank!  Instead, Backflip was put in his own tank on the top shelf, along with a sign reading “Danger! Do not reach in tank!  Severe lacerations could occur!”

Some cool mantis shrimp facts:

1.  Mantis shrimp can be either smashers or spearers.  Smashers have club-like appendages that are used to bludgeon and smash their prey apart.  Spearers stab and tear at their prey with spiny, barb-tipped apendages.

2. Mantis shrimp have one of the fastest (if not the fastest) feeding strikes in the whole animal kingdom.  Some species can move their appendages with the same acceleration as that of a .22 caliber bullet!

3. Their eyes are considered by many scientists to be the most complex in the animal kingdom, seeing colors that even we humans cannot.

Our new maintenance guy, Justin, has put a lot of effort into the aquarium area and it looks great, with several new tanks showing off all kinds of cool creatures.  Jeremy and Justin built Backflip a nice “cave” in the tank and made sure he was comfortable.  We’re hoping we can keep him for a while!

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Thursday, September 29, 2011 by Anna.

Chef Tony, Eugene, and the kitchen staff have really outdone themselves this year with their Saturday night barbecue dinners, featured on YMCA weekends and our Family Camp Event.  The meal is a southern-style barbecue feast, the star of which is slow-roasted pork (cooked for hours in a wooden roasting box) and grilled chicken.  These meats are topped off with a choice of homemade barbecue sauce: sweet and traditional, or the spicier (and truly to-die-for) Carolina sauce.

Some people say, though, that the sides steal the scene: a thick slice of bread  (last week’s was honey wheat), warm and rich cream corn, baked macaroni and cheese, crisp coleslaw, and fresh salad - all of it (even the bread!) made right there in our kitchen at White’s.  And, of course, no meal would be complete without dessert - in this case, apple crisp topped with vanilla ice cream.  I’m embarrassed to say that no matter how stuffed I am after dinner (I can never resist seconds on cream corn or Carolina sauce) I always get at least a few bites of that dessert.

I can’t say I’ve tried the pork myself, being a longtime vegetarian, but I can definitely appreciate how happy our guests are.  As Homer Simpson said before his barbecue, “You don’t win friends with salad!”  You definitely don’t win YMCA Dads with salad, but you sure can with a huge hunk of roasted meat. We hope that those of you who haven’t had a chance to try this feast will join us out here at camp one of these Saturdays…you surely won’t regret it.

Check out our flickr site for a few more photos:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/53138689@N04/

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Tuesday, August 23, 2011 by Anna.

For the second summer in a row, we were joined out at White’s by the LA County Sheriff’s department’s youth group.  The sheriffs brought out 15 kids, who participated in all our usual activities - hiking, kayaking, snorkeling, campfires - plus our Raft Regatta, which we do with our Camp Castaway campers.   The Raft Regatta was impressive, as usual, with the SS Maxwell (named for a little dog that wandered over while they were building their boat) competing against the Joe Mama (don’t ask!) and the Paradise.  The little dog must have brought good luck, because while it was a close race, the SS Maxwell came out on top (although the Paradise was close behind, and the Joe Mama won best name - that’s what happens when you let the kitchen staff decide!).

Overall, the staff loved visiting with the kids and the sheriffs.   Some of us are hoping to be able to pull some strings in the future and get out of a few tickets.  Ha!

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