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Tag: camping

Webelos Resident Camp

August 4, 2011 /

Finished up three days of camping with Will at the Webelos Resident Camp at Camp Winnebago Scout Reserve in Rockaway.  We drove up on Sunday afternoon for 1:00 PM check-in and orientation, set up our campsite later in the afternoon and ate dinner in the dining hall before meeting up for a campwide evening campfire.  We’ve camped before, Will and I, but this was our first time in the canvas Boy Scout tents.  We should have been more prepared.  Unlike the tent we usually bring from home, the canvas tents basically offer overhead protection from rain, but not much else; the are not enclosed at the bottom nor the sides, and evidently a large contingent of Daddy Long Leg spiders decided to camp there at the same time we did.  Will and I were a bit skeeved, to say the least.  Our first night of sleep was fitful, but got better on the second and third nights.

Spiders aside, Will had fun.  The purpose of the resident camp is to prepare the Webelos for entry into Boy Scouts, and the differences between Cub Scout adult leadership and Boy Scout scout leadership.  The week before, Will had attended the Scout Day Camp at Camp Allamuchy, so he’d been doing Scout activities for 1 1/2 weeks.

Monday and Tuesday started off with 6:45 AM Polar Bear swims in Durham Pond, followed by 8:00 AM breakfast in the dining hall.  From there, Will and his fellow Webelos skateboarded, raced cubmobiles, played field games, built raingutter regatta boats and leathercrafts, learned about geology, snakes, frogs, newts as well as fishing, practiced their shooting skill first on the BB range, then archery, then back to the pond for more swimming and boating.  Back to the dining hall for dinner at 6:00 PM, evening campfires, and finally everyone crawled back into their tents around 10:30 PM.  The Webelos took turns waiting their tables, and were responsible for setting the tables, bringing out the food, and clean-up afterward.  On Monday evening, they took a 1 1/2 mile hike and prepared their own dinners over a campfire, satisfying several of the requirements for the Outdoorsman achievement.

We woke early on Wednesday, readied our site to pack out, had our final breakfast in the dining hall and a final lowering of the flag out on the parade field, and headed home, tired but happy for our experiences at camp.

 

Camping at the Delaware Water Gap

May 31, 2009 /

sunfishW. and I spent Saturday night camping at Worthington State Forest at the Delaware Water Gap.

We drove out on Saturday afternoon, where we met up with 5 other scouts/families; unfortunately, we arrived just after the larger group had taken off for a hike up to Sunfish Pond.  Sunfish Pond is quite a hike – about 6 miles round trip, and would have been challenging for W. to say the least.  I’ve hiked up the A.T. at least twice, and the terrain can get very steep and rocky.  Instead, we setup camp and hung around until the group returned, then had dinner by the campfire.

The temperatures during the day were pretty warm, but the overnight temps dropped into the 50s, which we got to experience first-hand when W. woke up for a 2:00 AM trip to the bathroom.  He really had to go bad, and the dam was about the burst; he did not even have time to put on his shoes for the 100 yard walk, so we grabbed our flashlight and took off into the darkness in just our socks.  Brrrr.  We were men on a mission, and focused on completing the task at hand without delay.

The pace back to camp from the bathroom was a little bit more leisurely, and I noticed the pitch black darkness that lay just outside the small area lit up by our flashlight, and I remembered the warning signs posted all over the forest about the presence of black bears in the area.  I quickened our pace.  When we arrived back at the tent we tore off our muddied socks and jumped back into our sleeping bags, where we slept rather fitfully until sunrise at c. 5:45 AM.  By 8:30 we had struck the tent, broke camp and were in the car for the ride back home.

This was W.’s first experience with real camping – out in the woods with real wild animals, amid the threats of deer ticks and poison ivy, instead of in the comfort of the backyard.  Despite the fact that we missed the hike, he had a great time.

Busy Busy Busy

May 17, 2009 /

will_communion3I realize it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but time has been tight recently… we hosted W.’s First Holy Communion shindig last weekend, which turned out to be a blast.  Much prep work went into the backyard celebration, between cutting the lawn, digging/mulching/planting the flowerbeds, power washing the patio, tent/tables/chairs setup, coordination with the caterer, etc., … The celebration of the Holy Sacrament was held at 10:30 AM, and was very, very nice.  I barely recall my own First Holy Communion (I remember the date – May 10, 1970 – but very little else) in Holy Child Church in Philadelphia.  I don’t think I internalized the event at all, and just went with the flow and followed the kid in front of me.  W.’s First Holy Communion was much more intimate, and hopefully made a more meaningful impression on W than mine did on me.  W. actually was picked to read two of the petitions during the mass, and he did a great job.  Even while at home today, he was humming one of the songs his class learned for the celebration.

 

The shindig at home lasted into late Saturday night.  The next morning, W. and his class helped to celebrate the crowning of the Blessed Mother in the May procession at Sunday mass.  To make the day even busier, of course, we celebrated Mother’s Day with gifts from W., K. and Dad for Mom, and visited E.’s mom/grandmother in the evening, bringing some of W.’s left-over cannoli filled cake.

flying_monkeyFriday and Saturday night, W.’s school staged The Wizard of Oz.  W. played a munchkin in the first act, and a flying monkey in the second.  The kids certainly practiced enough over the past few weeks, and gave a pretty good performance.  I was kind of surprosed, because I know that some days at rehearsal W. enjoyed running around chasing his friends more than practicing his song and dance routine, but evidently he really was paying attention.   On Friday afternoon, he was genuinely bouncing off the walls excited – it was fun watching him perform, remembering my own grade school shows back in 3rd and 4th grade, and then years later in high school.  Fun stuff, for sure.

Yesterday was catch-up day on the lawn.  The weather forecast for yesterday was iffy – cloudy in the morning, with rain showers in the afternoon likely, so I jammed in the iPod ear-buds and fired up the mower early.  The grass had grown quite a bit in the 10 days since I had cut it last, but that was nothing compared to the neighbors’ grass.  Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen much of them around the house for the past couple of weeks.  I heard the husband on his back porch last week or so when I was outside in the flowerbeds, and I had seen the missus a little before that, but pretty much every day their cars are both gone, all day, and I haven’t seen them in the mornings when we’re all getting out the door to work.  It made me kind of wonder if something wasn’t quite right, and sure enough, it wasn’t.  Turns out E. was in the local Target on Saturday afternoon when she ran into the soon to be former wife-next-door: the happy couple who bought the house next door a year after we moved to the neighborhood is filing for divorce and pretty much leaving the house to the bank.  They bought when the market was high, re-mortgaged again when the market went even higher, and now that the housing market has tanked they are well under water withan asset worth nearly 100K less then they owe on it.  Obviously, I am concerned as to the maintenance of the house right next door to mine and its impact on my own house’s value.  We’ll see how this story progresses…

This afternoon W. and I flashed some leather and had a catch in the backyard; his throwing has improved a lot in the last year, and he’s doing a better job of getting his glove on the ball.  He doesn’t always make the catch, but he’s reaching for it better, getting in front of it, and following the ball into the glove.  It’s good to have the 6 foot fence behind him though, or he’d be chasing down a lot of balls that got behind him.

On the weekend of May 30th, Scouts is planning an overnight camping trip to Worthington State Forest out in Sussex County.  I haven’t been out there in many a year; I think the last time I was there was to hike along the Appalachian Trail when I got caught in a downpour coming down from Sunfish Pond and had to strip down and drive home in some very wet underwear.  This time, we’ll be prepared for rain, just in case.

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