For weeks I just loved saying it.  I loved telling people:  “I’m going to Hoop Camp.”

“What camp?”  “Poop camp?”  “What’s Hoop Camp?”

Here I’d like to share with you my favorite, fairly unedited impressions of my first Hoop Camp Retreat:

Hoop Camp, Day 1:  Getting the Lay of the Land

Baxter opening session.  To be honest, some of the teachers at Hoop Camp were names I didn’t recognize.  But as a fan of Baxter’s Hoop Path retreats, I looked forward to his opening session.  As I pieced together my arrival into Hoop Camp, I told myself that as long as I made it to that workshop, I would be happy to to spend the rest of the week hooping under the trees by myself, enjoying the solitude and quiet away from the city.  As it turns out, quiet solitude is not quite what Hoop Camp is about…

Best bear paws.  As we wheel our luggage up the hill to Hoop Camp central, Philo Hagen passes by, holding a giant pair of rubber shoes shaped like bear paws.  I am delighted to meet Philo after reading his hooping.org posts for years but become fixated on his rubber shoes.  He directs me to the vendor tents up the hill.

At the vendor area, everyone else is trying on sexy hot pants with ruffled hems and sparkly jewelry that hangs down to their shoulders.  I pick out a pair of pink rubber bear paws from a plastic bin sitting in the dirt.  I cannot imagine these shoes seeing the light of day in NYC.  Nonetheless, I consider buying a pair for all of my friends in New York, starting with my boyfriend.  My new Hoop Camp friends discourage this practice.  Eventually I agree that maybe you can have too much of a good thing and one pair of pink bear paw shoes is a whole lot of good thing.

Back at the cabin my cabinmates and I are setting up house.  They notice that my pink paws  happen to match my hoodie, my water bottle and my hoop.  We stage a little photo shoot to capture this moment of convergence.  I have effortlessly and inadvertently achieved the pinnacle of style that proclaims to the world “I’m eight and everything I’m wearing is pink or a cartoon animal.  What you gonna do about it?”  It is an excellent way to start Hoop Camp.

Lining up for dinner. Somehow Natasha and I kept ending up at the meal line that formed inside the dining hall area.  Outside, another line formed that was chattier and flashier.  The girls and guys outside seemed to be Hoop Camp veterans.  They chatted and laughed, rehashing memories of past hoop events and flaunting their hoop-cessories:  leather pocket belts, fur vests, butt cheeks flashing out of booty shorts and of course feathers – feathers in the hair, dangling from ears, sweeping down from the rim of beat up suede boots.  That first night was cold so Natasha and I were quite happy to stay inside, wrapped modestly in our practical, flesh-covering fleece.

Meeting Raquel.  Raquel’s booth was at the end of the vendor tents.  She was small and dark and very bundled up under a large hat.  She sat quietly crafting earrings and didn’t try to sell us anything as we walked up to her table.  We lingered over the jewelry.  I bought a pair of beautiful, eggplant-colored peacock earrings.  (I’m not usually a feather girl but it only took a few hours at Hoop Camp to start becoming one.)  We started chatting and before the evening was over, we had taken pictures together, talked about the purpose of life and completed two angel card readings.  Natasha and I had made our first new Hoop Camp friend.  Raquel’s openness and optimism was a welcome change from NYC and I was very glad once again to be back in the Bay Area where what the rest of the country calls “hippie” or “New Age” we just call life.