Camping Trip

This weekend Gabriel and I went on our first Cub Scout camping trip.

We drove up with to the Sid Richardson Scout Ranch with the other Tiger Cub Scout leader, Kevin, and his son, Brandon.

The Scout Ranch is a great place with heavy forests, scenic cliffs, open prairie, and sixteen miles of rugged shoreline on Lake Bridgeport.

After arranging our camp site and setting up our tents we all went to enjoy the activities. There was a BB gun target range (Gabriel earned a patch!), archery, basic map reading, pumpkin carving, a pumpkin catapult, and a bunch of Halloween games.

After dinner I took the boys for a hike through the woods down to the lake. The boys skipped rocks and played around near the water until the sun began to set. Then we all headed back to camp to get ready for the Haunted Hay Ride.

The Haunted Hay Ride was not at all scary, but we all got some good laughs at the flimsy dinosaur that tried to eat us and especially when Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre bit the dust running after the tractor!

The highlight though was towards the end when these two light sabers lit up the darkness and Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn stepped out of the woods with two aliens the put on board the tractor. As soon as the aliens were seated Darth Maul came out of the woods and the Jedi started battling him as the tractor drove away. About fifty meters up we were stopped by two Stormtroopers who proceeded to search the tractor for the aliens, once they were located they called into the woods and who should stride up to us…the dark lord of the Sith himself…Darth Vader! He executed the aliens and we drove away as the Stormtroopers fired after us. The kids loved that part and being the Star Wars nerd that I am…so did I!

Then the pack all came back to the camp site where we lit a bonfire to roast marshmallows and make s’mores while we told ghost stories. After all the kids were in their sleeping bags Kevin and I broke out the contraband Shiner Bock and relaxed.

The next morning we broke camp and headed back home.

I was getting disappointed with how things were going with the Cub Scouts, it was boring, disorganized, not at all what I thought it was going to be (military like) and although we had volunteered to be leaders Kevin and I really didn’t know what we were doing, but the camping trip did go smoothly and we all had a lot of fun.

Hopefully things will continue to get better...