If you go to Adult Camp, you are not an adult!

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Adult summer camps are increasing in popularity. In Texas, there’s the Urban Camp Weekend, in Kilgore, the woman-only Camp Everygirl in the Hill Country that boasts fancy dinners and lodging, and Sherwood Forest Grown-Up Camp, held at the site of the yearly renaissance fair in McDade. Camp No Counselors has been around since 2013, with camps in New York, California, and now Texas. I’d guess that most people are going for the same reasons I did: to recapture their youth, unplug, or see if playing tug-of-war is actually as fun as they remember. (It is not.)

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Unlike camp when you’re a kid, at adult camp you have a lot of unscheduled time. After I plop my stuff down on a lower bunk (no climbing, easier on the knees), I wander around the grounds by myself, enjoying the eighties songs that would constantly blast on speakers throughout the weekend. A group of campers in their thirties and forties are playing a lively game of Wiffle ball. It’s mostly grown men wearing backwards hats and tank tops and yelling “DUDE,” but a few women are on the field too. Everyone, even the spectators, look so into it. I’ll soon realize that “so into it” is the prevailing adult-camper attitude, one I’m not even close to adopting yet.

At dinner time, I head to the Fillin’ Station, where campers enjoy three daily meals, and load my tray with pasta, chicken, and vegetables. I’m suddenly faced with that classic cringe moment: New kid looks for a place to sit. The long wooden tables are filled with groups of campers laughing and chatting. The majority seem to be with already-made friends and most look at least twenty years younger than me. Feeling self-conscious and a bit “old lady in da club,” I find an empty table in the back. “I’m Rudy the Rabbit,” I text my husband, referencing the shy, friendless kid in Meatballs. “But menopausal.”

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The noncounselors teach us the camp song, lead us in a chant of “F— work!” and stress the importance of consent. Then, finally: They announce that the bar is ready to open. (Beer is available all day, but cocktails are only served during the camp socials held after dinner.) A noncounselor informs us that the group of campers sitting in the front row are first in line for drinks. Immediately curious about who merits such special treatment, I see six women, most with graying hair, all in shorts and T-shirts, and all confident as hell.

Skipping the chance to belt “Wonderwall” during camp karaoke, as well as the raucous beer pong tournament, I sidle up to the cocktail crew: three friends from Texas and Florida and their three cabinmates from the St. Louis, Missouri, area. All women over sixty years old. Here I also meet my cabinmate Julie Herrick, a 74-year-old former journalist newly relocated to Houston. Like me, she had come to camp alone.

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“Why are you here?” I ask the group before confessing that I feel a bit out of my element. Julie signed up because the camp offered kayaking. “Of course, now I know there are places in Houston that have it, but doing it alone isn’t as fun as it is with others,” she says. “That was the attractive component to camp—not doing things alone. A chance to meet a future friend.” Terri Pearcy, a recently retired registered nurse from Fort Worth, enrolled after seeing an ad on Facebook. “I’m 67 and I do not feel self-conscious about my age here,” she reassures me. “In fact, I’m proud to be participating in everything, and I’m having so much fun!”

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