A Camping We Will Go

Whew! What a weekend we had, filled with camping and more camping! It was quite a time. On Friday, Conner had his first Day Camp experience. It was held at Lake Lowell's Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge in Nampa, Idaho. The theme was the Wild West, so the boys had activities geared around cowboys. The day was great - not too hot and not too much chaos. I was one of 6 leaders for our group of 30 boys.

I was glad to be there with Conner as he participated with the other boys going about the activites of the day. There were 14 boys from our pack in my group. We had some Wolf, some Bear and some Webelos Scouts, so it truly was a mixed bag. Conner really didn't like the football part of it, but I think he rather enjoyed the crafts and the BB gun shooting. The picture shows him holding the ends of the rope making machine. The boys got to keep a bit of the rope that they made. It was pretty neat.

At another station, they boys got to run the Pony Express mail route. This next picture shows Conner dressed in the vest with the mailbag and the stick horse.

We left the cub day camp early so that we could be on our way to the father and sons camp. Don't ask me how they came to be scheduled on the same day! That really makes for some worn nerves, too. I mean after spending the day with 14 boys ages 8, 9 or 10 you get to spend the evening with 100 boys of all ages! I was beat and went to be early. The father and sons camp was at Herrick Reservior near Cascade, Idaho (about 75 miles away). Great setting and not too many bugs yet.

Dylan Boer (one of my former Scouts who just turned 12 a few months ago) was giving rides in their side-by-side ATV. I don't know if you can really tell in the picture, but Conner is grinning from ear to ear! He had so much fun and it was great to see that Dylan was so responsible too. I like to think that I had a small part to play in that, what with being his Scout leader for two years and all. Maybe he was actually listening to what I was trying to teach to those boys all those weeks. Who knows? I will keep doing it because I want them to have a good (even GREAT!) experience in Scouting beacuse I remember what a fantastic time I had as a youth in Scouts, so hopefully these boys are having a great time too.

After breakfast we packed up and came home. Then I took a nap to recover.