Friday (12/6) we headed out to Camp Lanoche for another scouting weekend. Here’s a photo from the car as we’re coming in to the campground just before sunset. We had to boogie to get our tent set up before darkness set in!
It was too dark for a photo of the tent by the time we got it set up Friday night, but here’s what it looked like. We actually timed ourselves setting it up – it took exactly 6 minutes to get the tent up, and approximately 34 minutes for the fly.
There were 2 other families in our pack – Chris with his twin boys Gabriel and Mason (enormous khaki tent), and Janet with her son Nicholas (blue dome tent on the right). Our tent was like the shack in a really nice neighborhood… but we liked our little shack. 🙂
Here’s the whole group of us: Janet, Chris, Me, Jacob, Gabe, Nicholas, Mason. The adults were super nice and children were all very well-behaved. We shared our site with another pack – there were 3x as many kids and adults, and the kids were so rowdy that our kids didn’t even like when they were around! In fact, they opted out of a 2+ hour event Saturday night so they could have a quiet evening by the fire with us. The other kids drove us ALL nuts.
Friday night the first thing the kids did was make Rainbow Loom bracelets – HA! No one coordinated this event, it’s just that every child on Earth between the ages of 6 and 12 seem to have a rainbow loom set and carry it with them at all times. Kind of a strange event for camping, but whatever. It kept the boys occupied while the adults made dinner.
After dinner and rainbow-looming, we ate dinner around the campfire and shared stories and jokes. 10:30 was lights-out. It started to cool down into the upper 50s at night – a stark contrast to the high 70s/low 80s during the day! Friday night was very noisy, there were lots of animals in the forest and some of them got into fights. Plenty of racoons, too – we heard them walking and breathing outside our tent most of the night. Plus apparently several of the parents snore. After a night of off-and-on sleep, we woke up at 6am to the sweet sound of a trumpet screaming Reveille. Ugh. It reminded me of boot camp in the Air Force, minus the drill sergeant screaming in our faces.
After breakfast over the camp stove and the usual flag ceremony, the boys started their day with a lesson in knot-tying.
This was a Webelos to Scout Transition Weekend, so the Webelos were learning about independence. Normally the parents would follow the kids station to station, but this weekend there was a boy scout leader for each group of cub scouts and that leader took them from activity to activity. The webelos participated in knot-tying, first aid, orienteering (navigation), bb guns, archery, first aid, cooking, and more. The schedule was pretty full, with several activities in the morning followed by a lunch break and then more activities in the evening. Although there were a number of lectures and classes available to the adults throughout the day, I decided my attention span is too short for that so I’d just YouTube it later and skip through the boring parts. Janet did the same, so she and I sat by the camp fire and chatted most of the day. We were the only people at the campsite and it was SOOOO NICE!!! I spent a little time reading my book too, something I didn’t anticipate having time to do at a cub scout camping event.
Here are our pack 507 boys, chilling by the fire at lunch time Saturday.
Saturday night we walked to a clearing in the trees to admire the night sky. It was so beautiful – crystal clear black sky with bright white stars. It’s amazing how different the sky looks without city lights nearby!
It was an exhausting day for the kids, and Jacob had a difficult time waking up Sunday morning.
After breakfast and packing up the tent, we headed back home. Jacob fell asleep in the car almost immediately!
Such a cutie.
He recently earned badges for Handyman and Outdoorsman, and this weekend he earned one for Forester plus probably a couple belt loops. His badges and loops will be presented to him next Monday. Unfortunately I’ll miss it because I’ll be in Tulsa for work, but Mark promised to capture the ceremony on video for me.
It was a very nice weekend. Totally opposite energy as Cub-o-Ween – I was so pleasantly surprised! I liked that we were a small group because it allowed me to really get to know the parents and their kids. The weather was perfect, I really enjoyed spending time with our pack parents, and the boys had a fantastic time doing the scout events. We’ll definitely do another Webelos Woods campout in the future.
