Monday, June 27, 2011 - Camp Begins

I’m writing to you from my post embedded in Troop 1106 here at beautiful Camp Marriott (where “we don’t run in beautiful Camp Marriott”). There has been a change since I last joined the troop here three years ago. We no longer are required to leave at 0:00 dark hundred. Instead we actually left in the light of dawn. While that meant an extra hour or so of sleep, the unfortunate side effect was that the boys were as awake as they typically are after two hours of driving. Maybe that was the reason I was distracted and missed my turn off…. fortunately, I was able to channel my inner Wayne Janzen and find the infamous mountain pass and make up quite a bit of time (we knew this since the one car that ended up following me when I was supposed to lead the entire pack – missed this turn and ended up in camp maybe as much as 30 minutes after we arrived.

We were assigned to camp 11. Camp 9 is our favorite camp. It is right next to handicraft and the commissary and the trading post. Very convenient. Camp 11, not so much. But you say, “t is only two numbers different.” Well, two numbers is worth at least 150 yards of walking over uneven rocky terrain. No, I’m not saying it is a perilous adventure walking to our camp each time – but you do have to cross a stream and I have almost fallen on my face twice on the stairs up the bridge that are not attached to it (of course, that could say more about my lack of alacrity than anything else, but I would argue to the contrary).

David (our newest “adult” -with the yellow wrist band to prove it - and fellow leader now) and I drove out to the camp and the Tall Cedars folks were already set up in site 11. There were three other camp areas. One had 5 tents with a 3 tent sub set for a total of 8. Another had 4 tents and the last had 5. We have 20 youth with us this week and 5 adults all week. Since these are two person tents, that meant that we needed to have 13 tents. So if we took the 8 and the 5 then we would have enough. That is what we determined to do. As we were waiting for the scouts, another troop showed up and indicated that they needed at least 6 tents. Well, now we are well short of tents anyway you cut it. While we were making this discovery, “Corn,” our camp site coordinator came up and I told him of the issue. He headed back down the hill to tell them we had an issue. Shortly after he left, another Scoutmaster showed up, he had 10 scouts and 3 leaders and was also assigned to Site 11. Hmm, for those of you who don’t do “fast math” that could be another 7 tents. Hmm. Meanwhile, we need to get changed for swim check… We used the tents that we had to get everyone changed and they headed down to swim check while a few of the leaders waited at the camp to get things resolved. The camp folks showed up and realized that one of the troops had been left off the chart and they were going to set up a new camp area for them along with adding some additional tents to the other camp site.

Later at the scoutmaster meeting we were told that capacity here at camp is 350. We have 507 scouts here this week. That is the most scouts that have been in this camp since 1974 – which is before I was going to scout camp and sister that is a very long time. We are busting at the seams. Should be interesting. There will be some large merit badge courses and there will be some difficulty getting into some courses.

The opening meeting took place at the flag. We were lined up and then we saw the camp staff rush over to near the front of what I might described as a series of extremely short single file lines in random vector patterns (in other words, despite request to the contrary, the boys were assembled more as a herd than a single file line). Out troop has welcomed two visitors from another ward (Wilhelms) and two of Bro. Neuffer’s grandkids. One of our visiting members had fainted. Don’t worry, he is fine and he was well cared for by the staff.

The youth scattered after lunch to various merit badges and handicraft was again a popular end point. I saw a number of the youth at the water front working on lifesaving merit badge. Dinner was pasta and meat balls which received fairly good rating, the accompanying broccoli not so much. However, it appeared not to be anything against this particular preparation of the vegi, as against the vegi in general as I only saw broccoli even make it onto the plate of one youth. Those of you familiar with the carts for carting food, should know that there are only a few carts still in service and none of those have both wheels working. Throw in the fact that we have to traverse a bridge/stream and getting food out here is a bit of a chore but the boys are doing it well.

There was a pair of underpants dropped on the trail early in the afternoon. Strangely, it was never claimed.

We went down to the fireside, but were a little late due to the site people wanting to instruct us when we were to be down there, and ended up at the back where it was hard to hear. We then moved to the flag ceremony where both Nates in our group ended up attempting to lead music. I won’t blame them given that there was clearly a lack of musical talent in the crowd, but let’s just say MoTab will sleep easy tonight, unless of course they heard us, in which case they may be too disturbed to sleep.

We ended with a devotional by Bishop Holtom. I was wondering if I would get a repeat of the one last week which I enjoyed. But he indicated that he was planning to do just that but as he thought about it on Sunday he decided to talk instead about Brother Joseph. As he read the section in the D&C about the martyrdom he read the date – June 27. I looked down at my watch – this was the actual anniversary date. That was very powerful to me. When I told the Bishop about it, he seemed to be surprised as well. It was an inspired choice and I found it very moving.
Day one is over. Unlike prior years, it appears that I will embedded all week. General observations – 20 kids is a lot. Three patrols are also a lot. There are lots of chiefs and not yet many good Indians. I’m tired. Jeremiah got into the ATV program but Bryce even having been accepted was rejected due to age but he has been going to merit badges instead.

Till tomorrow…

Overheard at the waterfront:
Lifeguard on dock – “hey you in the Kayak. Where is your buddy”

Kayaker – “He abandoned me”

Lifeguard – “You have to have a buddy.”

Kayaker – “Really? Well, he never really was a buddy.”

Lifeguard – “Hey, have you taken the kayak class?”

Kayaker – “Yes.”

Lifeguard – “Were you in my class?”

Kayaker – “Yes”

Lifeguard – “Is your name Geoffery?”

Kayaker – “yes.”