Our first Full Days of Camp

Our boys had busy days Monday as they settled in to the week’s routine.

After a breakfast of French toast sticks and sausage, the Scouts headed out to the first activities of the day. Our first-year Scouts attended the Trail to First Class session. This program is designed to train new Scouts in all the skills required to earn their rank advancements from Scout through First Class. For our first year Scouts, the first day or two’s sessions are largely review as they have covered this material in our troop’s own program. Nevertheless, reviewing these skills is productive as it helps Scouts retain what they have already learned and they will need these skills throughout their Scouting careers. Each of our five first year scouts reported having a good time, and claim they look forward to Tuesday’s long hike.

In the afternoon, they tackled an ambitious program of merit badge courses, taking swimming and cooking. Both of these merit badges are required to earn the rank of Eagle Scout. They finished their day with a surprising amount of energy left!

Our older Scouts had their own full schedule of merit badge courses, starting at 9:00 AM, including pottery, environmental science, first aid, and shotgun shooting among many others. With so many young men in our troop here at Camp Geiger, our boys are in almost every merit badge class offered this session. We all look forward to the next Court of Honor where their achievements will be publicly recognized in front of their peers and families. Hope to see you all there!

The adult members of our troop were not idle by any means. Each year we perform a service project for the camp and this year our volunteers built benches for the archery range area. Interestingly, the wood they used for the benches was wood that Mr. Lueking had routered-out more than ten years ago! As with other such projects, there was a fair amount of waiting for materials etc. but our guys finished one bench and initiated two others in the time allotted. Thank you to those who participated for your service to our boys, to the camp, and to Scouting!

The weather here at Camp Geiger has been pleasant, for the most part, though stiff winds in the afternoon and through the night presented some challenges. In the afternoon, we had one tent blow over, frame and all! The night proved to be even windier and a pair of our Scouts spent their night sleeping beneath the stars.

Tuesday, we were all proud to see our SPL and ASPLs proudly include the Texas flag when the United States and Missouri flags were raised during the morning ceremony. This privilege was our reward for earning the highest score in yesterday’s campsite inspection (127/100 owing to bonus points).

The meal of cheesy eggs and hash browns seemed to be quite well-received and everyone downed plenty of water too. Even though it has not been Texas-hot here this week, spending all day outdoors, hiking up hill and down dale necessitates being well-hydrated. This point is emphasized at every meal and is worth heeding. When our Trail to First Class boys arrived at their training, everyone was double-checked for a full water bottle.

Now, it is after 9:00 AM and all of our Scouts are off to merit badge classes or other activities. We adults have a few moments to collect our thoughts and share some of them with the outer world. It has been a full day already. Look for more to come later Tuesday!

Again, there are some issues with posting photos. To see what our days look like, visit the Troop SMugMug page (http://troop451.smugmug.com/) of join our group on Facebook (Boy Scout Troop 451).