High Adventure - Team and Crew 1106
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Once more boldly (or at least with far less trepidation than
the 12-13 year olds) going where no men have gone before (because, admittedly,
this trip was based at least in some part on the outline from girls camp last
summer – thanks Cheryl and Donna!) – I have been embedded into 1106’s team and
crew as they embark on High Adventure this year. Because it is summer and teens tend to avoid
those pesky early a.m. hours (unless, of course, you consider early a.m. hours
those from midnight to say three a.m. in which case I would think you would
find a much larger portion interested) the departure time is set for 10:00 a.m.
with arrival at 9:30 so that “tetris” can be played with gear. As we have done the math, we have 4 drivers
for 17 young men and all their gear including tents and food which we generally
don’t have at scout camp. However, John
Evans, our de facto leader as anyone with higher rank than him is 1) hard to
find generally and 2) smart enough to have made other plans, has through his
cunning ways acquired a suburban for the trip and masterfully fills it to
capacity plus. No wonder he is in
charge. We pray and then forget the
obligatory first photo and load up.
However, we aren’t quite ready to all head out as one family has to make
what seems to be a record 3 trips back to their home for various and sundry
items including, of course, their paperwork.
So rather than a caravan, we head out at slightly varied times.
We put the info into the on board navigation and rather than
sending us up 15 as I thought, it sends us west on 7. Everyone else followed the directions John
had printed. We instead enjoy a
leisurely stroll through VA, WV, and finally into MD. We arrive not long after John and decide that
our routes are probably pretty close in drive time but not distance.
We arrive at camp and check in with the rangers. They ask us for the paper ticket. We have no paper ticket so we furiously ping
Bro. Linton to find out about the ticket.
He has received no such ticket.
It remains to be seen if this will be a continuing headache or not as
they let us in at this point even without it.
The youth group area has 3 camp sites. We are assigned to #3. There is a scout troop from GA here – they
have matching tents, a big trailer to haul their gear. Very impressive. Our camp is, well, let’s just say that our
free spirits apparently aren’t too comfortable with that level of
conformity. Youth stake out tent sites
and tent mates, check out the bathrooms, try to hold the door shut on each
other, have slight water fights, and we realize it must be time for a hike. 
When John was in talking to the ranger, he inquired about
swimming at the falls and was told that if you do, death or dismemberment could
happen, but that there were some places you could get in if you wanted. Most of the boys thought that was clearly
enough of an invitation and switch into swim gear. The hike was supposed to be 1.5 miles. After a pretty short haul we come to the
falls and they are pretty impressive.
They also have many people frolicking in them. Hmm, the “getting in” situation is not quite
what we have been told. However, we are
on the top of the falls and one could get injured from up there, so we tell the
boys we will finish the hike loop and then come back. So we continue up the path and get to very
relaxing little falls and then in what can’t be more than 5 or maybe 8 and a
half minutes after we left it, we are back at the big falls again. We headed down the path, passing a family in
swim gear with sub-baptismal age youth with them giving us further inkling of
the awaiting “death waters” we are approaching.
We all head down and remove shoes and socks and shirts for a little
gentle wading in the stream below the falls.
After discussing the buddy system and the safe swim methods with the
boys, we let them in the water to enjoy the cool water on their legs. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. The boys have a great time and then we head
back to camp for dinner. On the way I
stop at the office/store to pick up some wood since we can’t bring our
own. Jacob and Hunter and one or two
others curiously join me. Curious to me
at least until I meet Erika behind the desk.
I had no idea what her name was, but strangely Hunter and Jacob
did. I reckon Erika sells a lot of
drinks to thirsty adolescent males.
Dinner is our foil dinner that they (and when I say “they” I
mean the 30% of us that showed up on Thursday evening to make ours and the rest
of them get what Bro. Evans tossed into tinfoil for them) pre-assembled. Of course we used pre-cooked hamburger
patties and veggies, so this is really more of a warming exercise than a cooking
one. But of course, one does need fire
for things like warming. The prior group
left a lot of charcoal briquettes (Bro. Haselden told me once that an American
dictionary maker changed a number of words just to be different from the Britts
– I’m curious as to why he didn’t change that one…but I digress). Jacob “fire starter” Hamm is given the task
to get the firewood we just purchased to burn such that we can cook. He is experienced and starts making some
kindling and setting up his log cabin.
He does a tremendous job. All
except for actually starting the fire.
There are complaints about it being wet wood but regardless, we still
have cold or frozen dinners. Various
other plans are hatched to generate fire – I use my chimney and the “left over”
charcoal won’t light. Conway pulls out
his one burner stove and we fire it up and put the wood right on the burner and
it lights – somewhat and then goes out as soon as placed on the fire. I finally get my own charcoal and get that
started while Bro. Evans runs to the store to see if they have any scout
water. They don’t, and that is all Erika
tells him. But being used to rejection
but not failure he rummages around the store and finds they do have fire starters
and he purchases and returns and since we have pretty much dried out the wood
now – we get a fire started.
The boys then dump their dinners directly onto flaming logs
in a rush to eat. There is a constant
call for the tongs and they are passed along continuously as foil packets which
used to have names on them are turned over and over in a mostly random manor,
generally with multiple boys thinking it is their meal, the anticipation,
hunger and curiosity overwhelming them resulting in it being pulled out,
finding it is still somewhat frozen, re-wrapping not ‘quite’ as well as it was
previously wrapped and dropping it back into the flames to be turned over
shortly by someone with the power of the tongs.
I’m reminded of that saying about
power corrupts and trust me the power of the tongs is ultimate power. I grab most the leaders meals and place them
on the briquettes I started. That is
some good even heat. I find the hickory
seasoning very good and Doug Nichols secret weapon adds some additional very
enjoyable flavor and I quite enjoy my dinner.
We have cheater smoores for dessert (using chocolate covered graham
cookies). Very good. Most folks eat a dinner that is a little
burned and a little cold. Yep, typical
foil dinners.
After dinner we head down to the field for field activities. There is a sand volleyball pit with a net and
the crew gravitates that way. If you
have ever watched beach volley ball on tv, like at the Olympics, it was exactly like that. Only we weren’t in really small bikinis
(thankfully) or speedos, there were about 9 per side rather than 2, and our
apparent efficiency experts decided that a set was less efficient than simply pushing
the ball immediately back over the net.
Despite what you may hear from some boys, despite playing for quite a
while, I saw but one partial block and no real good spikes. But we had a great
time, and of course my side won.
While nearly all the boys were enthralled with the
game. One member of the crew found other
interests. Well not so much other
interests since some YM were playing catch and that is what he ended up doing,
but with a couple YW for company. Casanova
was making friends and influencing people.
When this was noted by some YM they were very jealous and wondered how
he did it. I told them that among other
things he might have going for him, he had at least one thing that they would
never have – a really cool accent. We played Frisbee,
shooting sports and volleyball until it was so dark that we had a hard time
doing most those things and then headed back to camp.
At camp folks re lit the fire and we had
devotional by Nate B. who talked about the differences between Ammon and
Jonah. Prayer was said and I went to
bed. Looking forward to tomorrow – white
water!
No comments:
Post a Comment