Day Five: Sunday, May 26th
Riese: I think “the last day of camp” is the only day of the year when I don’t shower first thing in the morning — and it’s ’cause I always oversleep, but don’t wanna miss my chance to say goodbye to everybody before they disappear into the fog on a shuttle bus.
Robin: The last day of A-Camp is always bittersweet. I’m usually very sleepy so I’m excited about passing out for a week in my own bed and seeing our dog, who by this point thinks we have abandoned him forever. I’m also very sad to be leaving the mountain and this experience that means so much to all of us and especially to be leaving my friends, old and new. And since camp is only once a year now, Marni and I were especially sentimental as we stood up at the bus turnaround and watched you all leave.
Laneia: There’s a feeling on the last day of like, “well, that was this A-Camp! Good or bad or weird or beautiful, that will forever be our A-Camp, and now it’s over.” It’s just so much! You know? You go into it knowing it’ll come to an end duh, but when you close the book on the last day, it feels very large and exhausting. And you know you’ll have 92834798 things to process on the way down the mountain. That’s also when I read my pigeon hole messages and cry and cry and talk some more. I don’t think I take a break from processing until we get to the Chipotle in Palm Springs.
Kaylah: Adding an extra day to camp was so much fun, but it also kicked my ass. I think at one point I was no longer Kaylah and I became Cupcake the twerking zombie.
Hansen: When the shuttles were late, I realized I’d never get off the mountain. We lived there now, it was our home, and AB Chao was going to have to make us some adorable log cabins in the woods, I was sure of it. You see, when Lizz’s girlfriend Chrissy gets on a bus, it breaks down. Struggle Bus One AND Two from camp 4.0 involved Chrissy’s presence, so she’s cursed. When our shuttle got to LAX, I was excited that it was relatively struggle-free (minus the part where the other bus turned a corner and all of its lug nuts fall off?) but it was fine, it was totally fine.
Hansen: We got to the intersection where you can see the LAX sign, and suddenly, the shuttle turned off and wouldn’t start again. I damn near burst into tears. We convinced the shuttle driver to coast it through a tunnel to safety, no joke, and the other shuttle had to come back and fix our shuttle and after we finally got there, my campers bought me beer to soothe my tired nerves because they were the best campers ever. It was the perfect end to camp, just hanging out in the airport, drinking beer and eating pizza with The Con cabin.
Carmen: Before leaving LA, I did one last time what I’d wanted before I came: In-N-Out. And it was glorious.
Riese: As per ritual, we stayed at Crystal’s hotel in LA that night and had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. A special twist this time was that I apparently picked up the A-Camp Plague that exact day and was sneezing for my supper. Food was delicious, though!
Stef: After we gathered all our googly eyes, guitar pedals and sex toys back into our trusty SUV, Lizz, Meredydd, Cara and I booked it to Chipotle. I wrote many romantic verses about sofritos. Later, Shannon and Carolyn joined us for an evening of ten thousand pizzas and deep decompression.
