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In April, Troop 221 took 29 Scouts to East Texas to spend the weekend at Camp Meisenbach. Click the image to see the whole gallery.
Friday evening started out a bit rough. As it turns out, part of the adventure of camping at Meisenbach is actually finding your campsite. After a couple runs at it, we found it, wrangled a few vehicles and trailers in there and set up camp. We had such a late start that it was close to 11 pm when the boys started into the Cracker Barrel.
Saturday morning started at 6:30. The older boys taught the 1st Year Scouts how to setup the chuck boxes and stoves and they got going on breakfast. Two patrols made breakfast tacos and two patrols made french toast. Everyone was reminded that eggs will stick to anything you try to cook them on.
After breakfast and KP, the boys split into two groups. The older boys went to Canton to take part in a Zipline course and the younger scouts went on a 5 mile hike. Both groups had a great time, the 1st Year Scouts met a dog named Judd that came back and hung out in camp until dinner time. We had a feeling that this was just a normal weekend for him. The zipline crew also had a great outing. It was awesome to watch a couple boys overcome their fears and step off of the perfectly good platform 100 feet off the ground. The staff at Wired was excellent and very complimentary of the Scouts.
We all met back up in camp in the afternoon and the older boys taught knots and lashings while the even older guy taught map and compass skills. Afterwards, there was plenty of free time for football and cards.
Dinner came around and brought a new set of challenges. Two patrols were cooking with raw chicken and a third with raw hamburger meat. It was a great opportunity for the scouts to put into practice what they had learned about the safe handling and proper cooking of raw meat. Everyone did well; the comments ranged from best campout meal ever (Spartans) to we shouldn't have used so much pepper (Falcons). The Omega patrol made tacos and mexican rice and Alpha had chili, fritos and rolls?
After dinner, the boys planned and put on an outstanding campfire program. The evening ended as they usually do; with cobbler.
This was a fantastic campout: the largest group that we've taken out in a very long time, outdoor adventures, challenging meals, a great balance of advancement and free time, an evening campfire, skits, cobbler and plenty of new experiences, teaching and mentoring. What more could we ask for?
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