weekend in detail: episode one – unintended aquatics at camp

27 Oct

since I have some time (see last post), here’s some of this weekend.

The first part of the weekend, Andrew and I went camping with the scouts at the local scout reservation for the district camporee. The usual scout camp rules apply; get to the site late, set up tents in the dark. Luckily, we took the easy, small tent. Of course, one of the integrated tent poles broke during setup, and and improvised fix was implemented with duct tape and some extra tent stakes. Whether I can manage a more permanent fix is still up in the air, but that, right now isn’t particularly important.

The rain started at some point in the middle of the night; the sound of the rain actually made sleeping kind of nice; we stayed mostly dry, other than my scout uniform(!) and the boy’s sleeping bag (he got himself wedged right up to the side of the tent). Still, we fared better than some.

The rain kept up, in varying volume and intensity, all day Saturday. The day began with a breakfast of “sandwich bag omletes” (a really rather ingenious invention, resulting in nourishing food and very little cleanup – fill bag with egg beaters, sausage, onion, season to taste, boil it for ten minutes). Here’s Andrew enjoying his:

After cleaning up, the cub scouts (of which there were five; we were mostly along for the ride with the boy scouts, who had an entirely different program) got on with the day’s activities, including compass and map navigation, knot tying, archery, and BB marksmanship. The boys had a good time, despite the soaking rain, and earned a few cub scout activity awards. Here’s Andrew at the Archery range.

After the Cub activities interspersed with a quick lunch, we set about packing up our gear, which was completely soaked, as we had to take the tent down in the rain, and I hiked it out to the car (about a quarter mile) while Andrew hung out under a dry rain fly with a couple of other scouts and leaders. The cub portion of the weekend wrapped around 4pm – the Boy Scouts were really just beginning their program at this point; a spy-themed affair set to go well past midnight.

On our way out, we almost got the car stuck in the mud; but with some determination and some admittedly expert manual transmission manipulation, we got out without a hitch (unlike the van we passed as we were walking to the car!). The car, however, was pretty much covered with mud, grass, and other bits of nature. Sadly, I never got a picture before I washed it on Sunday afternoon.

All in all, we had a good bit of fun, even if we ended up completely soaked. Of course, as was said many times during the weekend amongst the cadre of adults present, it’s the rainy wet disasters that you’ll remember forever. I still remember a certain event from my youth at Knoebel’s grove where it rained all weekend, our tents floated away, and they kicked us out early because the creek rose above flood stage. It was, in retrospect, the best camping trip ever.

Hopefully, this will be one of Andrew’s fond memories someday.

No Responses to “weekend in detail: episode one – unintended aquatics at camp”

  1. 1
    Mike Says:

    PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE post a picture of “Adult Chuck” in a boy scout uniform! That is a truly MUST SEE!

  2. 2
    jen Says:

    I think the Andrew as Legalos (minus the pointy ears and long tresses) picture is quite cute!!!

    I’m glad you had a fun time despite the rain!!

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