Markus

I hardly remember anything about the summer of 1993.  That was the summer I turned 15, but I couldn't tell you what my birthday party was like or who was there or what presents I got.  I can't tell you what I spent the majority of the summer doing or who I was hanging out with.  All I remember is one week, one beautiful, glorious, life changing week.  If I could return to one week in my life, just one week to relive and not change a thing, it would be that week.

It was the first time I'd ever been to summer camp.  Granted, I'd been in the girl scouts for six years in my youth but campouts had always consisted of one or two night trips to a nearby forest area accompanied by the troop leader, my mom.  I'd also previously attended a winter camp that was a three night excursion to the same campground in February of the same year.  But that camp consisted of just teens from Northern California while the summer camp drew teens from all over California and even as far as Canada.  Winter camp had been just a brief sampling of what I was about to experience.

The camp was nestled in the mountains just 10-20 miles east of Pescadero (which is in between Santa Cruz and San Francisco on the Pacific Coast Highway) and was owned by the YMCA.  Whether you drove to the camp from the east or the west, you spent at least thirty minutes a road so windy that it was guaranteed to make any one with car sickness lose their last meal.  The roads, for those who could see past the turns, was gorgeous and peaceful, lined with tall redwood trees that loomed above the ground, softened by needles and decorated by pinecones.  The vibration in the car increased the closer we came to the campground.  The girls began squealing, me included.  The squealing became screams as the sign came into view.  Welcome to Camp Loma Mar.

Loma Mar.  At 15 I didn't even know what the words meant.  Loma Mar.  I didn't even know what language they were.  Loma Mar.  It could have been alien for all I cared.  Loma Mar.  It was the most beautiful name I'd ever heard.  Loma Mar.  To me, it meant home.