What a wild campout Troop 60 had: the weather expected to arrive on Sunday came early, so we got to practice camping in tropical storm force winds on Friday night and then hiking in what became a magnificent thunderstorm!

We welcomed Rees from the Webelos II den and showed him how Boy Scouts work in patrols and help each other set up camp, the kitchen, cook meals, and build a fire.

It was a windy afternoon, but the boys kept a positive attitude and made their dinner (hot dogs) and cleaned up before we celebrated a birthday with CAKE! And a present from the Scouts to Mark in gratitude for his service to the troop. What wonders will the Scouts cook in his new cast iron dutch oven?

The wind gusts stripped tents of their rain flies and tarp coverings and made for a noisy “wrap! wrap! wrap!” flapping all night, but we woke to a grey but dry morning. As one of the adult leaders said on Saturday morning, it was like “sleeping at base camp on Mt. Everest!” Check out the wind pushing over the tents:

We broke camp, made breakfast, and then went for a 2.5 mile walk to the Gardens. By the time we started back to the campsite and vehicles, it was a DOWNPOUR! Everyone got completely soaked, and I have no pictures of anything because my camera phone stayed safely in a plastic baggie, the ONLY dry thing for miles.

We stayed under a pavilion during the worst of the weather and made sandwiches for lunch while watching the lightning and thunder over the lake. It had its own beauty, but it certainly wasn’t what we’d planned when we arranged to go camping at Hodges Gardens. I think we need a do-over! 🙂

Special thanks to this trip’s parent volunteers: Bray, Mark, Melanie, Micah, and Stephen. We couldn’t have adventures without your help!

Tonight we welcomed four Webelos Scouts to our meeting: thank you for joining us, Den 65! The Scouts then broke into their Patrols and planned their menus and responsibilities for this weekend’s campout.

Gentle reminders: we are departing from the church parking lot promptly at 4:00 pm; Scouts need to bring $10 toward groceries as well as their overnight gear and sleeping bag. We will be hiking in the morning through the gardens and there might be a touch of rain, so they should prepare for a drizzle. We will be returning at around 3:00 Saturday.

It should be an exciting weekend!

At last night’s regular meeting, Scouts inventoried the Troop trailer in preparation for their campout to Hodges Gardens, and one Scout discovered that marshmallows may be the everlasting food. (Yikes!)

Then they learned about packing light for backpacking and hiking trips and played the “What’s Missing From My Pack?” game. They were impressed with the tiny backpacking stove, especially in comparison to the heavy table-top two-burner stove they use on trailer campouts.

Finally, Scouts presented their remaining Communication merit badge requirements and we wrapped up the meeting.

Next week, we will prepare the menu and final details of the Hodges Gardens campout.

What an exciting meeting! Troop 60 Scouts wrote a script for Court of Honor and practiced performing it while recently-earned merit badges and rank advancement cloth patches were awarded. Included in their script were funny stories from our Iditerod and other camping adventures. Ask your Scout for details!

Scouts came home with some flyers that need to be returned with signatures, including one giving me permission to post images of your child on this website and detailed information about summer camp (which is also available in the Forms and Files link above).

On the 20th we will begin preparing for the Hodges Gardens campout with fire building, knot tying, and trailer organizing.