Quite the Busy Weekend

We headed up to the west side of Harrison Lake to “Camp Cove” on Friday night in two trucks,  with 7 scouts, and two leaders.  We made the obligatory stop at “Rotten Ronnie’s” at Harris Rd.  After that, it was straight through to camp.  This was a competition camp, at which our Scouts would be competing to see if they can be the best patrol among 9 other patrols, in things such as camping skills, organisation, cooking, spirit, and cleanliness – all challenges for the average 11-14 yr old 🙂

We arrived at Cove around 2030, and by random draw, the kids got their site assigned.  Nice view, but on a bit of knoll, so also a bit windy when the wind blew.  All the kids were busy setting up tents, building tables, and generally camping, while we, the adults, stood to the side, and let them work.  It was good seeing what they could do without adult intervention.  Everything finally settled around 2330, and the final inspection of the day happened while they were all in there tents, to check if they’d left food out, or a messy site.  The fun part was waking them up, and telling them to come out and fix it (Bwahahahahah!).

Saturday Morning came, and with it, an opportunity to go drown some worms.  I whipped out the ultralight, and had a go for some cutties, which I figured would be cruising around for the chum fry.  Apparently, not in the area I fished 😦  Oh well.  I also determined that my old hiking shoes MUST go in the garbage, I twisted an ankle once, and later slipped, and came down on a rock with my elbow.  I always find it fascinating that you can cut yourself THROUGH a jacket 😦

After Lunch, the scouts had activities to complete, and I ran an activity in which a patrol had to carry a member over and under ropes, while never losing contact with him.  It was quite challenging, and the real thing I was watching for, was how the team worked under adversity.  It was nice to see some patrols coming together, however some fell apart.  As they say, adversity brings out the best AND the worst in some.

Dinner!  Dinner is always exciting, because a patrol invites you to have it with them.  This can be a frightening experience that can turn you off food for life, or can be a wonderful experience that makes you wish you camped with that patrol ALL the time.  Mine was a mixed bag.  It was supposed to be an Italian meal.  The spaghetti was coagulated ball of pasta that kind of made me gag, but the Ragu sauce helped to choke it down 🙂  It did come with garlic bread, and ceasar salad, along with a nice sparkling apple juice to top it off.  Other than the spaghetti, quite nice.  The spaghetti really dragged the marks down.

At this point things start blurring a bit…campfire, singing skits, late night, sleeping, breakfast, rain, rain, hard rain, rain, pack up, rain, closing.

The memorable part about the closing, of course is that OUR Scouts, the 40th Marpole WON!  Our scouts were like a well oiled machine.  They smiled through the tough stuff, and worked like a team through the WHOLE weekend.  Wow!

So, not much fishing, (or sleep) but a lot of fun, activity, and seeing the business men and women of tomorrow test their growing wings of independance.  Now – Time to sleep for me!

p.s. I’d appreciate some comments or feeback here – let me know what you think!  Thanks!