Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CAMP WINNARAINBOW
learn the trapeze with wavy gravy
LAYTONVILLE, CALIFORNIA
Camp Winnarainbow is the best place on Earth to learn things. Even if you
screw up, there will still be people cheering like you are an Olympic gold
medalist.
—Jasper Jackson-Gleisch, former student at Camp Winnarainbow
4 |
Walking a tightrope or flying on a trapeze might not spring to mind as the art or craft you
most want to master. But the side effects of Wavy Gravy's Camp Winnarainbow—things like
snorting, uncontrollable laughter, and compassion—make this circus-skills camp taught by the
old Grateful Dead circus clown a must-stop on the arts-and-crafts circuit. Surely you haven't
forgotten that childhood dream of running away and joining the circus?
Every day at the 700-acre Black Oak Ranch, located in northern California's rural Men-
docino County, campers perform in two talent shows. They sleep side by side under a mag-
nificent stand of oaks in a circle of tepees fluttering with rainbow-colored banners and spend
afternoons swimming, zooming down a 350-foot waterslide into Lake Veronica (so-named for
the sultry siren of the silver screen Veronica Lake), and playing bingo on a raft named George
(after actor George Raft).
All meals, sumptuously prepared from the camp's organic garden, are considered dress-
up affairs—but don't pack your tux. The camp's on-site costume barn provides everything
you could possibly need, from beanies with propellers to false teeth embedded with stars and
squiggles to miscellaneous gorilla parts.
If this sounds a little like kid's camp, slather on the sunscreen and listen up. For 12 weeks
every summer, Camp Winnarainbow
is
a kid's camp. Thanks to royalties from Jerry Garcia's
namesake Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor and grants from the Grateful Dead's Rex Found-
ation, camp scholarships are provided to homeless kids from the San Francisco Bay Area, as
well as to Native American kids from a South Dakota reservation.
