The halls at St. John the Baptist Catholic School were near empty last week, as two of the classes at the school weren’t anywhere near their normal classrooms.

The school’s fifth- and sixth-grade students were at Eagle Bluff Outdoor Learning Center in Lanesboro.

When the students came back to the regular weekly classroom grind, they had a chance to write down some of their impressions of their three days at camp. Here, in their own words, is what the students had to say about camp:

Food at Eagle Bluff

The food at Eagle Bluff was very good. But the portions were not very good. They had a salad bar at Eagle Bluff that you could take any time you wanted. In the morning they didn’t ahve a salad bar they had a cereal bar. In the cereal bar there was fruit, yogurt, and cereal. One other thing we did for meals was the golden plate award. TO get the golden plate award our school had to waste less than two lbs. If we wasted more than two lbs we didn’t get the award. The food car people had to man the cart so people put food items in the right bucket. The cart most people most of the time got nothing to do because no one really wasted anything. For meals at Eagle Bluff we had 2 breakfasts 2 dinners and 3 lunches.

Jonathan Melin

Eagle Bluff Gift Shop

At camp eagle Bluff, there was a small gift shop by the cafeteria. In the shop there were all sorts of clothing like sweatshirts, shorts sleeve shirts, and long sleeve shirts, that say Eagle Bluff on them. The shop had hats and all sorts of weather gear. They had a lot of buyers buy the real animal skin. That came in black and white. Here are some more things that a lot of people bought. They bought jewelry, mood rings, and hand panted ones too.

At the shop I bought a wooden hand panted snake, a wood panted ring, and a turtle made out of bones. I think the Gift Shop was cool because it had a lot of neat things, and there were a lot more things but I can’t list them all.

Paige Busch-Huss

Fungus Among Us

When we went to camp we had lots of different classes. One of the classes we had was a fungus class in that class we had to learn about consumers, producers and decomposers. Then when we were done learning about that, we got to go outside and look for fungus. Do you know what a fungus is? Well one sort of fungi is a mushroom. That is what we looked for mushrooms. We also got a sheet that had lots of different kinds of mushrooms (fungi). One sort of mushroom we found a lot was the self-mushroom. That mushroom is a mushroom that is connected to a tree like a self. There was big self-mushrooms and small self-mushroom.

After we got to look for the mushrooms we went to a little hut with a self mushrooms but those mushrooms only grow in Japan. Then we went on to a different part of the forest. The place we went to was The Chamber of disgust. That was a box full of old things like broccoli, rice cake, orange and sausage. Those items were very old and moldy. Then we went back to the classroom and made a pizza. We did that because it was all made up of fungus. Then went it was ready we ate it all up. That is what we did at Fungus Among Us.

Megan Weierke

Eagle Bluff Olympics

One of our evening activities was the Eagle Bluff Olympics. We held the Olympics in a big auditorium after the Caves program. We split up into six different teams. Some of the teams were the Timber Rattlesnakes, the Spring Peepers, the Turkey Vultures, and the Voles. Each team was trying to survive the winter. We were trying to gain calories by winning events. If you lost an event, you would lose calories.

Some of the events were a tug-o-war and different relays. The Timber Rattlesnakes won the tug-o-war. One relay was the wheelbarrow race. Another was a matching game. A chaperone would call out an animal’s name and we would have to find the matching track. In another one we had to look through a pair of binoculars backwards and walk along a rope. One game was trivia. The last one was a relay in which each person had to be an animal and move like that animal across the area. The Spring Peepers ended up winning. The Spring Peepers consisted of Kyle Schansberg, Daniel Kochlin, Brian Hartman, Andrew Fogarty, Jacob Backlund, and Alex Cole.

Mitchell Atneosen.

Sports and Eagle Bluff

At camp Eagle Bluff we mostly played football and volleyball in our free time. When we played football we played against this school named the Southland Rebels. They had about 25 kids and we had about 25 kid. They were in 7th and 8th grade so we lost to them. I actual juked this kid and he got hurt so his friend that was Australian tackled me in the touchdown It was really funny. We met a lot of people playing football was a really fun time.

We also played volleyball but not as much as football. The girls played volleyball the most though they actual played against another school at Eagle Bluff. Connor was our mascot for volleyball. Some of the girls did play football but they mostly just played volleyball. It wasn’t that much fun playing volleyball since we had so had a lot of people. So then everyone just played football. I really enjoyed liked my experience at Eagle Bluff, Everyone that goes will really like it.

Jacob Backlund

Eagle Bluff- Hide-n-seek in the rain

When the 5th and 6th graders went to Eagle Bluff Camp, we had many classes. One of the classes was called “Animal Signs.” Guess what it was about? Animal signs! Some animal signs are scat (animal droppings), body parts, feathers and fur, and tracks.

For most of the class we were outside. Guess what we were doing? We were looking for animal signs. We were looking for footprints of many different types of animals including, deer and raccoon. We also found lost of deer scat.

As we were walking we went into a pine forest. We played a game called “thicket”. The game was like hide-n-seek, except the “predator” is the seeker. Everyone except the predator goes and hides to camouflages themselves. After 15 seconds, the predator opens his eyes and who ever they can see it out or got “ate”. Who ever he doesn’t see gets 10 more seconds to move closer to the predator. This would be the last round and who ever he doesn’t see and is the closest gets to be the predator next. Over all the class was fun except that it started raining in the end but at least we had raincoats and ponchos on.

Alex Wolf

The Deadly Hill

When we went to Camp Eagle Bluff we took many classes. One of them was called Animal Signs. In the class we went to Kill Hill. This was a very steep hill that had a whole bunch of animal bones and carcasses on it, which consisted of legs, ribs, rib cages, antlers, skulls, and even full body carcasses. The councelors or instructors of the class put all of those bones there so a lot of animals would be attracted to Camp Eagle Bluff, so we could see tracks and identify all the different sorts of things that the animals do. We St. John kids could also see feathers, tracks, and many other animal signs on Kill Hill. There was even a full deer body carcass on the top of the hill. It was also extremely smelly. It was very fun for us to search, discover, and identify all of those animal signs. Kill Hill was very extraordinary and very very fun. It was all a great experience for all of us St. John kids.

Brian Hartman

Dorms at Eagle Bluff

At Eagle Bluff all the students shared dorms with other students of their choice. Inside the dorms there was seven cubbies where you could put your stuff, a shower, a bathroom, and four bunk beds. Some of the rooms are handicap accessible and have a bigger shower, bathroom, and have two separate rooms with two bunk beds in each. The other rooms have one big room with the four bunk beds in different corners of the room. They also have a smaller shower and a smaller bathroom. The first time the water was used it smelled because it probably had sat a while after the other campers used it. There are two sinks and a soap dispenser that looks sort of like a box in the middle of the sinks. The mattresses were really hard. Other than the mattresses the dorms were really nice.

During room time you could play silent ball, play cards, play charades, or just hang out. In our dorm we played charades and cards. We also made friendship bracelets. We played catch with my stuffed turtle Murtle. The lights were out at 10:00 p.m. and you woke up at 6:30 a.m. Breakfast was at 7:30 a.m. Camp was very fun!!!

Rachel Menke

Wildfire

Eagle Bluff was one of the best adventures of my life. One of my favorite things was the campfire. My favorite was the dancing. The fire was not that big but it was fun. We sang songs, danced, played charades and ate smore’s. The name of the song that we sung was The Moose The Moose. The fire was the best time ever.

Daniel Kochlin

Caves

The 5th and 6th graders went into a large auditorium. There were all the schools were there. In this room we learned about caves. All of us found out that caves mainly form in karst regions, which are made of limestone and springs. One of the biggest karst regions is in Kentucky, which is also home to the largest cave in the world, Mammoth Cave. We also learned that Fountain is the Self-Proclaimed Sinkhole Capital of the U.S.A.

We all learned that animals have gaind and lost abilities from living in caves. An example was a fish that had lost its eyes because it had no need for them in the dark. As a demonstration Kyle Schansberg had to go on stage and get blindfolded to resemble a fish. He then had to feel with his hands for a cricket on the stage. All of us found out about the different cave formations, stalactites, stalagmites, sugar straws. People are destroying caves and others are trying to preserve them. After all that the slide show was done.

Alex Cole