Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Happy campers

WEEKEND EDITION

September 4 - 7, 2004

Shirley Johnson, 66, made sure she signed up for camp on the first day registration began in July.

A retired IBM administrator who moved to the Las Vegas Valley from Southern California in 1995, Johnson wanted to make sure she secured a coveted spot before they were all gone.

As she described how she got the earliest possible postmark on her application, because they are accepted only by mail, her voice reflected the excitement of a child looking forward to returning to camp where all of her favorite friends go.

Beginning Wednesday, Johnson will be one of 55 seniors attending Camp Silver Pines, a three-day camp for adults over the age of 50 at Camp Lee Canyon at Mount Charleston, about 45 miles from Las Vegas.

The camp is open to the first 55 adults who sign up, and this year's camp filled up in one day, said Kate Grewe, the camp's director.

The cost of the three-day stay this year, including food, transportation, overnight accommodations, supplies and a T-shirt, is $100.

Perhaps the only difference between Camp Silver Pines and summer youth camps is that Silver Pines campers do not sleep on the top bunk beds. They are reserved for storage.

Co-sponsored by Clark County Parks and Community Services, Henderson Parks and Recreation, North Las Vegas Parks and Recreation and Senior Dimensions, a health insurance group, the camp this year will celebrate its fifth anniversary.

"It's a marvelous getaway," Johnson said. "I love it."

And she's not alone.

Several campers from last year's group said they looked forward to returning to Camp Silver Pines all year long. And because so many do, camp is as much a reunion as it is a vacation.

Tom Ainsworth, 75, enjoys his time at the camp so much, he hates to go home when it's over, he said.

"To be quite honest, I just love it," Ainsworth said. "The air is so good."

This year he will return for the third time, again accompanied by his partner, Fran Entenmann, an 83-year-old former Convention Center clerk who moved to Las Vegas in 1978 and is originally from New York's Long Island. The two met about 10 years ago on a Senior Tripsters-led outing to a nearby gold mine.

Ainsworth, a valley resident for 35 years who used to work in hotel maintenance at the Imperial Palace, looks forward to participating in new activities.

This year's scheduled activities include ice cream making, golf, origami, drumming, movies, yoga, a ropes course, nature walks, flower arranging, book discussions, a murder mystery party and tai chi.

All of the classes are taught by qualified instructors, some who volunteer their time, Grewe said.

Many activities are scheduled for the same time periods, so participants have to choose carefully what they want to do, Grewe said. Many campers said they hoped organizers would extend the camp so that everyone had more days to take in the activities available to them.

"I've always wished it were longer," Ainsworth said. "I could stand a week or two."

The list of classes is so diverse it occasionally includes an activity some campers have never even heard of.

Last year at camp, Jack Hartsell, a 58-year-old retired employee of Southwestern Bell who moved to Las Vegas from San Antonio, was introduced to bocce ball, an Italian lawn game in which players attempt to roll their ball nearer to a designated target than their opponent.

Hartsell will be returning to camp for the third time. He said the experience is a vacation from his everyday routine, which generally keeps him busy, prompting him to wonder how he ever had time to work.

The food is as good as anything on the menus of Las Vegas' restaurants, he said. And the full-time camp cooks -- actually caterers -- keep everyone's stomachs full, he added.

"The air is invigorating, so everyone eats very well," Ainsworth said.

Camp Silver Pines attracts many couples, such as Entenmann and Ainsworth, but in keeping with universal camp tradition, men and women sleep in separate buildings.

"Women always need to have a little time together," Entenmann said. She didn't mind a break from her partner, she said.

Billie D'Entremont, who is 84 and served in World War II as a member of the Coast Guard's Women's Reserve in Hawaii, was a camper at the first incarnation of Camp Silver Pines.

She so enjoys the company of the other campers she keeps going back. But her love of the outdoors also attracts her to the annual outing. And she appreciates the fact that she doesn't have to lift a finger organizing anything.

"The air is so fresh," D'Entremont said. "And I don't have to plan anything."

Johnson enjoys the camp so much that she asked a reporter to not make the camp sound too fun.

"I don't want anyone else signing up," she said.

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