We had a lot of fun, through rain, sun and too much pink lemonade. We started classes on Monday, and ended classes on Thursday. We traveled on Sunday and Friday, and got a lot of drink mix over the days.
Sunday, we traveled and set up our campsite, took a tour around camp in the rain, and did swim tests in the cold. We had dinner, and went to bed.
Monday through Thursday, this is what a typical day would be like. Some scouts did the polar bear swim, a few scouts would go to morning muster, we got breakfast, passed around walkie talkies, and went to classes. We had scouts doing many different merit badges, including archery, kayaking, pottery, lifesaving and more. We got back to the campsite, and had lunch. We went to afternoon classes, some of which including astronomy, space exploration, wilderness survival, home repair and plumbing, and more. After classes we went to free time, which was spent at the pool, at the climbing tower, down at the archery range, at the campsite, and completing other merit badges. After that we had evening muster, which we wore our uniforms to, we had dinner, after which scouts over fourteen could go to welding, which is a class you sign up for. At ten one of our scouts had to go to a “stargazing party” for a requirement for astronomy. We took out a chess board, and played chess for a bit, actually starting the chess merit badge, because our scoutmaster is a chess merit badge councilor. Soon, people would get ready for the night and sleep in our cots, dreaming of giant crickets coming after us in the night.
On Thursday night, we packed up most of our stuff. Friday morning, we packed up what was left, ate breakfast, went to morning muster, and went home.
We also had a lot of adventures. On Friday we found a cicada having a seizure because it couldn’t fly, so after watching it suffer, play dead, and suffer some more, we decided to put it on a tree and leave it alone. On Tuesday, we had another girl troop over and we ate dinner together and talked and made friends. We made the not as smart decision to make five gallons of pink lemonade, between the two of our 2 1/2 gallon drink mix packets. T’wasn’t a good idea, for after the feast was over, we were left with about 3 GALLONS of pink lemonade. Over the next few days, few of us had water accompanying our meals. Only the pink lemonade. We shared with all, but not many came to partake of our pink lemonade. We did have some unwelcome partakers though. Wasps. Ants. So many others. They flocked to the pink lemonade like moths to a flame. They stayed for the rest of the camp. In the the end, we vanquished our foe, the mighty 3 gallons of pink lemonade(No hard feelings to anyone. We’ve moved on. I’m being dramatic). On Thursday, after we finished dinner, and most of our foe, one of the scouts friends from one of her classes came over to our campsite as we were playing spoons with sticks. They came over with four boxes of pizza. We were full though, and they had no idea what to do with it now. All of a sudden, we remember. Next to our campsite was a troop full of boys. Young boys. Young, hungry boys. Many young, hungry boys. The solution to our dilemma. We went over to the campsite. They were all sitting around a HUGE fire, listening to the inspiring tales of Thor. The leader of these aspiring young men, the SPL, came to us. We gave them the pizzas, told them it was theirs, and walked away, leaving them to devour the pizzas in peace. Also, in one of our tents there was like six crickets that would refuse to leave. One of our scouts couldn’t sleep that night. Actually preferred their wilderness survival shelter to the tent at that point.
Some of our other adventures and activities over the week were the Polar Bear Swim, which is where for three days of the week, you had to get up early in the morning, get in your swimsuit, jump in the pool, and walk back to camp. About 2 of our scouts did this, and one of them also did the Ironman, where you had to climb the climbing tower in under a minute, run a 5k, swim half a mile, and participate in a morning workout, all in the course of 24 hours. Kudos to the scout who did it. One rather exhausting part of scout camp was that the archery range was about a 10 minute walk, down a hill, so when you went back, you had to hike up a rather steep hill, for about 10 minutes. It was very exhausting, especially to the scout who had a class right after it. One thing that all the scouts who were able to go to it loved, was welding. The councilors were great, they had a good time, and had many inside jokes, such as calling the class “Underwater Basketry”. One day, they also had a stem fair, where anyone was free to go up the the stem building and use microscopes, learn about elephant toothpaste, tornados, electricity, and drones. T’was very fun.
We also have a tradition where we have a banner, and every year that we go to a scout camp, we add a flower. Hopefully, one day it’ll be filled. for 2020 we had it be a Covid Virus, just to commemorate the year.
All in all, we had a very memorable and fun week.
