As I licked the remaining chocolate off my fingers, I looked to my left to see Barb, sitting on a wooden bench, eating a huge peanut butter ice cream cone! Our eyes met, she gave a guilty shrug and and we both laughed. Caught in the act! 

“You couldn’t resist the temptation of peanuts, eh?” I laughed as I plunked down beside her and she took a big lick of her ice cream and shook her head. “Nor could I!” 

“I have to grab some peanut butter ice cream every time I come into town! Something about not be able to have it makes me crave it like a junky craves cocaine!” She said as she shook her head.

“We will both be so covered in peanut residue they will have to hose us down when we get back!” I said chuckling.

“You’re not kidding! Wait…you are kidding, aren’t you?” She looked at me with concern.

“I’m kidding. Pretty sure that just washing our hands will be enough of a precaution.” Barb visibly relaxed. “I see you got the camp mail and your package, so what’s next boss?”

“Would you mind peeking into some of the stores with me? I love just to browse. We have about 20 minutes before we have to leave to be back in time for lunch.”

“Well, if we have to, I guess I could be convinced to go browsing!” I winked.

The first store was an antique shop. There were so many cool treasures, of such a wide variety! There was plenty of knick knacks and doodads for your cottage, enamelware, stacks of colorful melmac, vintage linens, bear rugs, a mounted trophy buck (see above), assorted old paddles, silverware, pine furniture, teacups, and vintage jewelry. I managed to come out of there with one super awesome ‘must have’ (see salt and pepper set to the right). Don’t be jealous!

Since camp was “dry” we marched straight passed the liquor store. As we passed I imagined how delightful it would be to sit on the fishing dock, at sunset, at a sweet little bistro table, savoring a bottle of Merlot or a chilled Pinot Grigio. Heaven? Oh yes! But, alas, that was not to be. Apparently, ‘back in the day’, camp used to allow the counselors who were ‘of age’ to stock their own booze in the refrigerator in the staff lounge. You can imagine what went down. I am sure the camp nurses, back then, spent more time doling out more  aspirin and acetaminophen to hung-over counselors then they did to sick campers! A definite drag on the system all around!

“Don’t you wish you could just chill on the fishing dock with a bottle of wine?” I sighed to Barb as we past the window.

“Oh my goodness, yes! I will have to have you by one evening when we have a ladies night in the cottage. Lydia and some of the other counselors will come by and I will crack open a bottle of wine to enjoy and they do their laundry!” Sounded like a terrific evening. Wine and detergent!

Next up was the used book store. What a treat! From floor to ceiling, the shelves were tightly stocked with every type of book you could imagine. I headed straight towards the children’s section.

“Can I help you find anything?” The store clerk asked me as I started my search in earnest. 

“Yes, actually. I am looking for a book of short stories please. They have to be ghost stories though.” I needed help if I was going to tell a story at the camp-fire tomorrow night. “Preferably PG 13.”

“We have quite a good selection really. Right here.” She indicated a well stocked shelf. 

I managed to find two good books. It hardly looked like the one book had even been opened. The second one looked like it had been well loved (as in water damage, a coffee cup stain on the cover and a squashed dead mosquito on page 46). Flipping through the contents and checking out the illustrations, I could see that I had so many possibilities. I was excited to go back to camp and find just the right one…I wanted ‘creepy spooky’ but not ‘scare the bejesus spooky’ cuz I didn’t want to wreak havoc! 

Can you imagine how bad it would be to freak out a bunch ‘o campers at the campfire, and then send them back to their huts, located in the deep woods, in the pitch black darkness that is 10 PM in the remote Canadian wilderness? 

I know that I had seen one too many Friday the 13th movies (and I had only seen one…the first one). If you recall, the setting for that movie was Camp Crystal Lake and the counselors were preparing the camp for opening. Ha! I had been terrified of Mrs.Voorhees since then. And Camp Acorn was the perfect setting for her revenge for Jason’s untimely death! She lurked in every shadow and behind every tree at night at camp! This was exactly the type of situation I wanted to avoid creating.

Jason: inspiring nightmares for three generations. http://www.ign.com

At this point we were running out of time, so Barb and I stepped into the coffee shop. We each got a huge steaming cup of joe. I purchased a metric ton can of fine ground coffee as a treat for camp. I figured, judging from the number of counselors and staff who consumed coffee, it would be enough for maybe another five days or so?!

We hopped back into the car and started on our way back to camp. All in all a successful visit to a lovely little town. Now back to work. I had a clean hands inspection to supervise and I needed to get to work on a ghost story…