Scout Camp
You'll have to forgive me, because I am going back in time to try and think of all that happened for Scout Camp. It probably won't be long, because there wasn't too much that happened, but it is something that I need to put in here for my journal.
I'm going to start out with Sunday the 23rd of July. Nothing too spectacular happened that day, but it did feed into the scout camp. I got the kids off to church and didn't go there myself for the first two meetings. I did make it to Sacrament meeting. There was the last minute of getting things ready for the Scout Camp. We showed up at the church to get all of our gear loaded into the various cars so we could leave a bit earlier on Monday morning. This happened at around 6:00 in the evening. It was hot out there. After arriving home, we were just doing some relaxing around the TV when the power went out (probably around 7:00). We pulled out the game Sorry and played it with our kids. That was pretty fun, even though I lost. The power still wasn't on, so we went for a walk in the sweltering heat. As we walked down the street, we found that most of our neighbors had power. There were some of us who didn't though. Upon arriving home, I went in and called Utah Power (now called Rocky Mountain Power) to find out what the problem was. I was told that thirteen houses were affected by this outage, and we were lucky enough to be one of those. The estimated time to have it back would be around 3:00 AM (one of my neighbors was told 4:00 AM). Well, the heat was stifling in the house. We all stripped down pretty much at around 9:30 because of the heat. It was hot both outside and inside. Our next door neighbor had a generator that he ran all night, which is why I did not open my windows (I can't sleep with that kind of noise). We all had wet rags to help cool us down. Of course my C-Pap machine (for sleep apnea) wouldn't work because of the electricity thing, and my battery was away because we packed it for the camp. I would have to try to get a good nights sleep without it and with the added noise of that generator. Oh, one thing that we did was to read the scriptures late into the night on my Palm.
My night was very restless. I had called up Lance to have him give me a call around 5:00 because I wasn't sure that my alarm would work (it's a new clock). We got woken up at 4:15 AM by the TV turning on (I thought I had turned off the power strip) and then again at 5:00 I was given the call. The night was miserable. I made it through though. We arrived at the church at 6:00 AM, and I was as ready to go as possible. I grabbed a couple of cokes so I could stay awake for the drive to Bear Lake.
Driving wasn't too bad, but I had a bunch of noisy boys in my car (I probably did not need the caffeine). We made one stop in Evanston, and then headed up to Bear Lake. The trip was uneventful. We got all the boys registered there, and went for a swim check. We only had one of the thirteen boys who did not pass his swim check. They all headed for their merit badge classes. Being the first day we helped them get to class. At around 4:00, Lance was not back from the Scoutmaster meeting, so I went with the boy who had not passed his swim check. I got out there with him. You have to swim 100 yards to pass the swim check. I ended up doing 150 yards because he was struggling after I had finished so I swam out to give him encouragement. He passed it, so now all of our boys could do what they wanted to in the water. There was a nice campfire program tonight. I have to say that it was better than other campfire programs I have been to with the BSA.
I did get some rest this night, as I was able to set up my C-pap machine. I was quite tired when all was said and done. We started the day with breakfast (we paid the $65 a person for them to prepare our food). Arriving back at out camp, we helped our boys figure out where it was that each of them was going. We did get them all set, and then kind of checked on them to make sure they got there. I took a nice shower and then went back to camp. I spent some time in the water, but also looked at the schedules of the various boys so we could help them along. While in the water, I watched an eagle fly overhead. Beautiful! Majestic! We also had to make sure they got to other classes when they would come back to camp.
Lance talked to a guy who had killed a rattle snake in our camp. He helped him to skin it and then the meat was put in a freezer for later eating by the guy who caught it. I did get out on a rowboat. There was a nice storm that was giving us some pretty good waves. We just paddled around a bit and after about 1 1/2 hours of that came in. The boys played "Centuries" tonight like they did most every night. That is a game with a flashlight and all the boys try to sneak up on the one person who can only turn on a spotlight when he thinks he knows where you are to catch you. He also needs to call out your name.
Wednesday, before classes, we had all the boys go and take showers. While they were doing that, a badger came through our camp. We followed it to the waters edge, where it did its swim check. It forgot to do the backstroke though, so it didn't pass. It swam pretty far out into the lake. I never realized the things could swim. It came back, and we went over and I started to take pictures of it. Lance was being a bit foolish and got a bit too close to it. I even got to close at one point and when it put its back up, I backed away from it. Lance was on all fours and when it would crouch down, he would crouch down. The badger went through another camp and we warned the people there that it was coming up. It then wandered to a place that I think was its hole. Anyway, it was near to where the whole BSA was doing the flag ceremony (we usually don't go to those). We stayed to warn scouts to stay away from the spot because the badger was out. Of course the BSA people heard about it, and they came on over. Nate (from the BSA) pulled out his 9 mm pistol and trained it on the hole (it had dug in by now). Of course the badger did not come out. He stood there for quite awhile with that pistol aimed. I, as well as a few others, told him that we didn't think it was right that he would kill this creature. He was bound and determined. They got a smoke bomb and tried to smoke it out. Then, the fools decided that the smoke probably killed it, and started to dig. I told them that this was ridiculous. They dug a hole about 3 to 4 feet deep, and then started on a second hole. I took a shower. They started a third hole. What kind of brilliant people do we have doing this kind of thing. Of course, through it all, they told all the scouts to get to their classes. At one point, two scouts were next to me and they told them to get to classes. The boys said that they didn't have any. Seeing one with a camera, and the other with a notebook, I said the one was working on his photography merit badge in conjunction with the other who was working on his journalism merit badge. I hoped they didn't mind being in the Deseret News. They finally decided to put some water down the hole. This brought the badger up near the top. They poked at it with a stick and when it came out shot it seven times. I was angry at that. It took them about 2 1/2 hours to 3 hours to finally kill the thing. At lunch time, we heard some more shooting. They killed the second badger.
Lance and I went and talked to one of the leaders about Nate and this shooting. He tried to tell us that it was for the protection of the boys. We told him that they could've gotten a live trap and gotten them out of there. We told them they could call in the Wildlife and game department to take care of the problem. They wouldn't listen. He told us that there was no danger shooting into the hole and that Nate had spent 9 years in the military. I wondered if they released him with a section 8 (they didn't like my humor too much). We told them the dangers of firing into a hole and they finally agreed that the bullet could go anywhere after hitting a rock or something else. They changed their tack to the fact that badgers may dig a hole in a trail where a boy may trip and sprain or break his ankle. We didn't know what to say. I should've asked them why they weren't killing all the rabbits I was seeing then (then again don't give them any ideas). Anyway, that all kind of made me mad.
We chose to not send our boys on the wilderness survival this night because we didn't trust their leadership. Instead we found out what was needed and chose to do it at our camp. We watched as the boys worked together to get their lean-to's done. We did have to handcuff Josh to a pole so he would write a paper that was needed for his swimming merit badge. Russ is a cop and had those handcuffs up there. That was kind of funny.
Thursday came and went. Just some of the same stuff going on. Playing in the water and such.
At 1:00 came the time for the leaders to do some shotgun shooting. Russ stayed back, and Lance, me and Keith went up to do this. I had never shot at clay pidgeons. I ended up getting 2 out of 5 of them. I saw an old friend that I used to work with up there. Troy ended up being the best shooter there was. He was also with Geraldo (not sure of the spelling of his name). Geraldo said "push" instead of "pull" each time. That was kind of humorous. What wasn't humorous was when they had first loaded his gun, and he turned around with gun pointing at anybody that got in the way. We all hit the dirt, and they didn't know what to do with a leader that had done that. If it would've been one of the boys he would've been kicked off the mountain.
Thursday evening all of our boys (except two) went on an overnighter on the canoes. They went about two miles away in the canoes to stay the night. We went up and shot some more. I did terrible. I got 3 out of 25 shots. I just don't know how to do it.
Friday morning I got woke up by the boys coming back to camp from the canoeing. They certainly were not quiet. All the classes were done by noon, and rather than joining the others in the camp games, we went out in the lake and played football. It was all 13 boys against us leaders. The leaders were: Tracy, Keith, Russ, Lance and myself. I am the oldest of the lot. We were able to keep the ball most of the time. It kind of wore us out though.
A few of us went to the final campfire. This was where a lot of the troops did their own skits. The funniest skit was the skit where the troop chose to give their rendition of what happened with the badger. They got all the details I told you about above. I talked to them later that night to congratulate them on that skit and found out that the fish and wildlife people did come in because a scout called his mother and his mother called them, and gave Nate a citation for his actions. I think that was appropriate. They certainly were not following the outdoor code.
Saturday, we packed up and left. Stopped in Evanston again, and came home without incident. My wife thought we looked like we had been in the sun too much. It was a hot camp. It was good to be home.
Today, I found out that one of our boys told his parents a string of lies. The worst of these is that he accused a guy that had a camera up there of taping him while he was in the shower. We discussed this in a meeting at the church, and are going to have to talk with him and his parents next week. I'm furious with him. We know that nothing like that happened, and would hate to see somebody's life ruined because of such foolishness. It sounds like we will have to take care of some other lies as well.
Well, that's my week.
I'm going to start out with Sunday the 23rd of July. Nothing too spectacular happened that day, but it did feed into the scout camp. I got the kids off to church and didn't go there myself for the first two meetings. I did make it to Sacrament meeting. There was the last minute of getting things ready for the Scout Camp. We showed up at the church to get all of our gear loaded into the various cars so we could leave a bit earlier on Monday morning. This happened at around 6:00 in the evening. It was hot out there. After arriving home, we were just doing some relaxing around the TV when the power went out (probably around 7:00). We pulled out the game Sorry and played it with our kids. That was pretty fun, even though I lost. The power still wasn't on, so we went for a walk in the sweltering heat. As we walked down the street, we found that most of our neighbors had power. There were some of us who didn't though. Upon arriving home, I went in and called Utah Power (now called Rocky Mountain Power) to find out what the problem was. I was told that thirteen houses were affected by this outage, and we were lucky enough to be one of those. The estimated time to have it back would be around 3:00 AM (one of my neighbors was told 4:00 AM). Well, the heat was stifling in the house. We all stripped down pretty much at around 9:30 because of the heat. It was hot both outside and inside. Our next door neighbor had a generator that he ran all night, which is why I did not open my windows (I can't sleep with that kind of noise). We all had wet rags to help cool us down. Of course my C-Pap machine (for sleep apnea) wouldn't work because of the electricity thing, and my battery was away because we packed it for the camp. I would have to try to get a good nights sleep without it and with the added noise of that generator. Oh, one thing that we did was to read the scriptures late into the night on my Palm.
My night was very restless. I had called up Lance to have him give me a call around 5:00 because I wasn't sure that my alarm would work (it's a new clock). We got woken up at 4:15 AM by the TV turning on (I thought I had turned off the power strip) and then again at 5:00 I was given the call. The night was miserable. I made it through though. We arrived at the church at 6:00 AM, and I was as ready to go as possible. I grabbed a couple of cokes so I could stay awake for the drive to Bear Lake.
Driving wasn't too bad, but I had a bunch of noisy boys in my car (I probably did not need the caffeine). We made one stop in Evanston, and then headed up to Bear Lake. The trip was uneventful. We got all the boys registered there, and went for a swim check. We only had one of the thirteen boys who did not pass his swim check. They all headed for their merit badge classes. Being the first day we helped them get to class. At around 4:00, Lance was not back from the Scoutmaster meeting, so I went with the boy who had not passed his swim check. I got out there with him. You have to swim 100 yards to pass the swim check. I ended up doing 150 yards because he was struggling after I had finished so I swam out to give him encouragement. He passed it, so now all of our boys could do what they wanted to in the water. There was a nice campfire program tonight. I have to say that it was better than other campfire programs I have been to with the BSA.
I did get some rest this night, as I was able to set up my C-pap machine. I was quite tired when all was said and done. We started the day with breakfast (we paid the $65 a person for them to prepare our food). Arriving back at out camp, we helped our boys figure out where it was that each of them was going. We did get them all set, and then kind of checked on them to make sure they got there. I took a nice shower and then went back to camp. I spent some time in the water, but also looked at the schedules of the various boys so we could help them along. While in the water, I watched an eagle fly overhead. Beautiful! Majestic! We also had to make sure they got to other classes when they would come back to camp.
Lance talked to a guy who had killed a rattle snake in our camp. He helped him to skin it and then the meat was put in a freezer for later eating by the guy who caught it. I did get out on a rowboat. There was a nice storm that was giving us some pretty good waves. We just paddled around a bit and after about 1 1/2 hours of that came in. The boys played "Centuries" tonight like they did most every night. That is a game with a flashlight and all the boys try to sneak up on the one person who can only turn on a spotlight when he thinks he knows where you are to catch you. He also needs to call out your name.
Wednesday, before classes, we had all the boys go and take showers. While they were doing that, a badger came through our camp. We followed it to the waters edge, where it did its swim check. It forgot to do the backstroke though, so it didn't pass. It swam pretty far out into the lake. I never realized the things could swim. It came back, and we went over and I started to take pictures of it. Lance was being a bit foolish and got a bit too close to it. I even got to close at one point and when it put its back up, I backed away from it. Lance was on all fours and when it would crouch down, he would crouch down. The badger went through another camp and we warned the people there that it was coming up. It then wandered to a place that I think was its hole. Anyway, it was near to where the whole BSA was doing the flag ceremony (we usually don't go to those). We stayed to warn scouts to stay away from the spot because the badger was out. Of course the BSA people heard about it, and they came on over. Nate (from the BSA) pulled out his 9 mm pistol and trained it on the hole (it had dug in by now). Of course the badger did not come out. He stood there for quite awhile with that pistol aimed. I, as well as a few others, told him that we didn't think it was right that he would kill this creature. He was bound and determined. They got a smoke bomb and tried to smoke it out. Then, the fools decided that the smoke probably killed it, and started to dig. I told them that this was ridiculous. They dug a hole about 3 to 4 feet deep, and then started on a second hole. I took a shower. They started a third hole. What kind of brilliant people do we have doing this kind of thing. Of course, through it all, they told all the scouts to get to their classes. At one point, two scouts were next to me and they told them to get to classes. The boys said that they didn't have any. Seeing one with a camera, and the other with a notebook, I said the one was working on his photography merit badge in conjunction with the other who was working on his journalism merit badge. I hoped they didn't mind being in the Deseret News. They finally decided to put some water down the hole. This brought the badger up near the top. They poked at it with a stick and when it came out shot it seven times. I was angry at that. It took them about 2 1/2 hours to 3 hours to finally kill the thing. At lunch time, we heard some more shooting. They killed the second badger.
Lance and I went and talked to one of the leaders about Nate and this shooting. He tried to tell us that it was for the protection of the boys. We told him that they could've gotten a live trap and gotten them out of there. We told them they could call in the Wildlife and game department to take care of the problem. They wouldn't listen. He told us that there was no danger shooting into the hole and that Nate had spent 9 years in the military. I wondered if they released him with a section 8 (they didn't like my humor too much). We told them the dangers of firing into a hole and they finally agreed that the bullet could go anywhere after hitting a rock or something else. They changed their tack to the fact that badgers may dig a hole in a trail where a boy may trip and sprain or break his ankle. We didn't know what to say. I should've asked them why they weren't killing all the rabbits I was seeing then (then again don't give them any ideas). Anyway, that all kind of made me mad.
We chose to not send our boys on the wilderness survival this night because we didn't trust their leadership. Instead we found out what was needed and chose to do it at our camp. We watched as the boys worked together to get their lean-to's done. We did have to handcuff Josh to a pole so he would write a paper that was needed for his swimming merit badge. Russ is a cop and had those handcuffs up there. That was kind of funny.
Thursday came and went. Just some of the same stuff going on. Playing in the water and such.
At 1:00 came the time for the leaders to do some shotgun shooting. Russ stayed back, and Lance, me and Keith went up to do this. I had never shot at clay pidgeons. I ended up getting 2 out of 5 of them. I saw an old friend that I used to work with up there. Troy ended up being the best shooter there was. He was also with Geraldo (not sure of the spelling of his name). Geraldo said "push" instead of "pull" each time. That was kind of humorous. What wasn't humorous was when they had first loaded his gun, and he turned around with gun pointing at anybody that got in the way. We all hit the dirt, and they didn't know what to do with a leader that had done that. If it would've been one of the boys he would've been kicked off the mountain.
Thursday evening all of our boys (except two) went on an overnighter on the canoes. They went about two miles away in the canoes to stay the night. We went up and shot some more. I did terrible. I got 3 out of 25 shots. I just don't know how to do it.
Friday morning I got woke up by the boys coming back to camp from the canoeing. They certainly were not quiet. All the classes were done by noon, and rather than joining the others in the camp games, we went out in the lake and played football. It was all 13 boys against us leaders. The leaders were: Tracy, Keith, Russ, Lance and myself. I am the oldest of the lot. We were able to keep the ball most of the time. It kind of wore us out though.
A few of us went to the final campfire. This was where a lot of the troops did their own skits. The funniest skit was the skit where the troop chose to give their rendition of what happened with the badger. They got all the details I told you about above. I talked to them later that night to congratulate them on that skit and found out that the fish and wildlife people did come in because a scout called his mother and his mother called them, and gave Nate a citation for his actions. I think that was appropriate. They certainly were not following the outdoor code.
Saturday, we packed up and left. Stopped in Evanston again, and came home without incident. My wife thought we looked like we had been in the sun too much. It was a hot camp. It was good to be home.
Today, I found out that one of our boys told his parents a string of lies. The worst of these is that he accused a guy that had a camera up there of taping him while he was in the shower. We discussed this in a meeting at the church, and are going to have to talk with him and his parents next week. I'm furious with him. We know that nothing like that happened, and would hate to see somebody's life ruined because of such foolishness. It sounds like we will have to take care of some other lies as well.
Well, that's my week.
posted by Craig's Blog at 9:50 PM
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