Getting to Camp & Coming Home
Sending kids to summer camp for a whole summer is a big decision for any family, and it comes with a great deal of planning and communicating between parents, the camp, and transportation services to assure a camper arrives safely at camp and back home. Airline tickets are an integral part of a camp experience going from the south to the northeast.
This page of the exhibit shows the contrast in getting a child to camp versus going to camp as an adult. For an unaccompanied minor there is much more paperwork and the documents change hands multiple times during the journey, with each person leaving their mark assuring that the child is accounted for. The tickets and envelopes for a minor are covered in signatures, times, dates, and stamps whereas the ticket for an adult is one single piece of paper with one stamp and some marginalia. Everyday writing is a necessary vehicle used to transport kids in an airport because all of the communication between adults is analogue, and it’s spread across multiple state lines. The passport in this page serves a similar purpose, only within the walls of the campsite. A camper must go through multiple check points in order to settle in and the stamps serve to make sure the camper has gone where they needed to go. For example a camper must complete a lice check, find their cabin and choose their bed, and sign up for activities before they can really start to enjoy camp.