Scout Camp 2009

As M used to say, according to my hypothesis and calculations, or in my case after looking back at my day planners, this was my eighth year attending scount camp for the full week over the years. This year we were at beautiful Camp Baldwin on the east side of Mt. Hood. I hadn't been to Baldwin for many years and all I could remember was the dust. It's still there, big poofs of it every step you take...except all of it that came back with me.

This year I had just 5 boys, younger ones as the older guys in our troop are going to a high adventure camp in Washington. I went because our scoutmaster's wife just had a baby and the other scout leasders that could go are going on the high adventure. Included in our group was a non-member and two kids with disabilites. We went with Troop 400 from Canby 2nd Ward who had 5 young guys go, including only two from their ward, two from Utah who were the nephews of their scoutmaster and one non-member from another troop who missed his summer camp. All the kids meshed instantly in the parking lot before leaving. They were a great group. Steve Langford, the scoutmaster for 400 is great. No problems at all...except about a million yellow jackets. I avoided getting stung but four of our group were not so lucky.

I spent most of the week sheparding our two autistic kids - making sure they were where they needed to be when they needed to be there and doing what they needed to be doing. My plan was to make sure they were buddied up and attended the same merit badge classes and activities at the same time, but that was short-lived when they scheduled all different things except one merit badge. So each day I'd start out with both, drop one at the nature center, take the other to snorkeling, then back to the nature center to check on that one, then back to the lake to pick up the snorkeler and get him to woodcarving, the back to the nature center to make sure he didn't wander off between classes, then back to woodcarving to make sure he got to the rifle range, at which time I'd take a bit of a break, then gather them all up and go back to camp for lunch, then start over again for the afternoon sessions. By the end of the day I was pooped.

But it was all worth it as they both earned three merit badges and some partials that can easily be completed back here at home. One also earned his BSA Snorkeling card and made the dime club in riflery (five shots inside of the area of a dime.) They were thrilled and so were there parents when they got home.

Once again, I couldn't be prouder of our kids. They were fun, obedient, helpful, etc. Just no problems. I spent five days helping one of our guys at horsemanship, a very difficult merit badge that he could complete but he did the hard thngs and had a great experience that he has not stopped talking about. I learned a lot about horses, myself (ask me to name 15 parts of a horse, 7 parts of a saddle and 3 parts of a bridle and five breeds, etc.)

The weather was great on day one but got progressively colder and windier as the week went on as it was downright cold the last night. Still, we didn't get rained on so it was alright.

One kid from Troop 400 went fishing for the first time and caught a 12 inch rainbow trout, which we cleaned, cooked and ate. the nice thing about Camp Baldwin is you cook your food in camp and have to clean up afterward so it keeps the kids busy from 7 in the morning until 10 at night. Very little free time to get into trouble and they are ready to sleep when night comes.

Despite having a good sleeping pad, it's not as easy as it once was to sleep on a hard surface (platform tents) for a week, but it was worth. Nevertheless, it was a great week and well worth it be with great kids having funs and being able to teach them about scouting things.