Thursday was busy. We had bowling with the homeschool group in the morning, so I didn't get going on school until about 1300. That meant a long day of schoolwork. I finished it up, however. The bad part about the whole day was that Mom beat me at bowling! :)
Friday was also busy. I had plenty of schoolwork (as normal :) to get done, and I did get most of it done. Nothing much was out of the ordinary, except of course the campout.
We went down to Camp Birch overnight. For those of you who don't know, Camp Birch is our local council's camp. If you're curious about it, click here. Anyway, we had been hoping to lock in to the campsite that we had last summer for summer camp, but it was already taken when we finally figured out who to contact to make reservations. We ended up with the one next over, Shawnee campsite. Yet again, if you want to see where the stuff on Birch is, here's the map. It's in a PDF format.
We got to Birch about 1830. Thanks to Daylight Savings Time, we had plenty of light left over. Earlier in the week, the weather forecast was for bright and sunny skies. We had about 2 inches of sunshine overnight. Ha. Well, we got there, or at least two of the vehicles did. Unfortunately, the SPL and his brother and dad were all a bit late, since their furnace suddenly died that afternoon. However, from what I understand, they got it working again and headed down.
Almost all of us carried our gear in from the parking lot. On that map, the parking lot is all the way on the right side, while Shawnee is about in the east-west middle of the camp, just south a bit of the middle. We really found out on the way there what the registration guy meant when he said it was a tad bit muddy. Throughout the day, I became increasingly glad for Gore-Tex boots that are completely waterproof. We got to the campsite and it was a mudball. There was a stream running through one side of the camp where normally there was no stream. We nicknamed that our slip-and-slide, but nobody wanted to try it out.
After getting our two tents set up, we got the lantern working and started our cracker barrel. Most of the guys stayed in adirondacks, a three-walled log cabin, so we only needed two tents. The picture doesn't show quite what we had, but it's similar. The cracker barrel is just a snack time. This campout everyone just brought lots of chips, and a couple guys brought Jiffy Pop. Yummy!
We ended up doing a couple miscellaneous skits, including the Black Knight skit, before evening devotions. Taps was at 2300, and everyone drifted off to sleep sooner or later.
My alarm went off at 0610. Within ten minutes, I was dressed and outside. To my amazement, there was a distinctly noticeable lack of rain. Don't think I'm complaining! :) I blew reveille at 0630, later in the day receiving joking "death threats" for blowing it that early. Everyone, yet again sooner or later, got up and started on breakfast. Very little during the day was actually cooked, since we were emphasizing lighter-than-usual camping.
After breakfast everyone packed up. Everyone was either totally packed up or just about (I was in the latter category for a couple good reasons,) so we started to brief on the orienteering course there on Camp Birch. We did that, discovering a small patch of either quick or semi-quick sand. After that was completed, we headed off to John Bryan State Park and Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve.
This part of the trip was great. The water was much higher than usual, creating very forceful rapids. We got to see waterfalls, geese surfing the rapids, and a port-o-john (not in the river). Afterwards, we headed home, hitting Young's Dairy ***NOTE their site has cows mooing loudly--put down your speakers!*** along the way for ice cream.
Today was enjoyable. We had generally good attendance, except for one family that wasn't able to be here for an unknown reason. After worship we had a congregational dinner. The sermons were both quite useful. On a slightly to-the-side remark, if you ever want to listen to the sermons and psalm meditations from our church, just go here!
OK--I think that's it! Wait, I have pictures...
This is me before the hike. Excuse the look--Milkdud didn't tell me he was just about to take the picture...
Some of the group before the hike. I'm playing recall to get the two guys back in that aren't back in. Note two interesting things--the muddiness of the ground and Dad's headgear.
Me having fun packing my load. I think it was around 35 pounds or so. All the guys are ahead of me--since I'm ASPL, I got to be the rear guy, picking up the stragglers. As one assistant scoutmaster said, I could also help "the old geezers when they fall down." None of the adults had that trouble, thankfully. None of them are that terribly old, either.
Most of the guys, in various states of readiness for the picture.
Our first main break, located on a scenic overlook. All of the guys are in this picture. See if you can find ten! Not everyone has much showing. 
Dad's boot had problems... It kinda looks like a little crocodile mouth, without the teeth.
Temporary fix--it didn't hold the best, so we reinforced it with more. After about five yards of duct tape, it held (until the whole sole finally came off!)
Bumpas and I doing CPR on Milkdud. He recovered fully.
"Hey, let's rifle his pockets--we might find some money!"
One section of rapids. A professional white-water enthusiast could probably navigate this area, but he'd have a challenge!
One of the numerous waterfalls that's normally just a trickle--this time, it was bigger. I probably should explain that everything was bigger, due to all the recent rain.
A very nice waterfall picture, complete with a small rainbow
A really nice picture of the path ahead. The waterfall is the one from the previous picture. I cut out the hat and now have this picture as my background.
A narrow chute of water. The hydraulic power was amazing. I sure don't want to try this in ANY type of boat!
The group shot at the end. Sorry about the picture--I'm not sure what caused the break in it. Try finding me!
I think that's it for now. That was a long one. Thanks for putting up with it!
5 comments:
I agree, it was fun!
Isaac, I was the only one to bring the Jiffy Pop!
Yes, I found all ten. I must say, I like the description of the boot :-)
And wasn't the Passchendaele Campsite lovely?? If you don't know Passchendaele, look it up.
Those were neat pictures! The scenic ones are beautiful! BTW, I really like the music!
~S~
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