A little over a week ago, I FaceTimed one of my best friends, Chris, who I met during one of the best summers of my life.

Chris and I have more inside jokes and stories from summer 2018 than I have room for in a column. Telling all of those jokes or stories to others normally results in saying, ‘you just had to be there.’

Then there are the really good stories that involve my brother, Tyler, and the ones that happened after the summer was over.

I haven’t been able to get back to KenMont and KenWood Camp since that summer, but it’s a place that I am always welcomed back to and somewhere I will always have a job waiting for me.

I spent three summers working there in the photography department, which allowed me to get to know a lot of the staff and campers. One day I will get back to camp and hopefully, that day is before all of my campers grow too old to return as campers. Hopefully, some of them will return as a staff member.

Just as staff leave a big impact on the campers, campers normally leave just as big, or bigger, of an impact on the staff. There are campers who staff can’t wait to see again and to see how they have grown from summer to summer.

After summer 2019, Chris and Donny came down to New Mexico for a few days. The beginning of that time was spent discussing what I missed that summer and how the campers that the three of us have worked with have grown and matured.

I still had to work while they were here, but they didn’t mind at all because that allowed them to go to a high school football game, a rodeo and a New Mexico United game.

Chris, being from Leeds, was incredibly excited to go to a high school football game and a rodeo — two things he had never experienced before.

Him and Donny got so into the football game and I took many embarrassing photos of them.

It was downpouring for the majority of the rodeo, but that didn’t stop the two of them from having a great time and pretending to announce what was going on, even though we all had no idea. It made for great laughs.

Then there was the United game. The day started with a tailgate where New Mexico United owner Peter Travisani put me in a dunk tank. All three of them, and a few of my other friends, had a fantastic time dunking me.

Chris is a huge soccer person and had a great time at the game — that might have been the most fun United game I’ve been to. Every time Chris and I FaceTime, we always talk about that game. There’s lots of laughs when remembering the dunk tank and all the other goofy things that happened that day.

Our conversations always include what we are going to do once Chris can make it to New Mexico again or if Chris and I can make it to camp again for the same summer.

There will probably be a lot more antics that happen if we are both at KMKW at the same time, but that only makes the campers have an even better time.

Caitie Ihrig