Fall Cub Scout Campout

This school year Jacob joined Cub Scout Pack 912. he is a tiger cub (which means First Grade); there are also wolves, bears and Webelos (4th & 5th), after that they graduate to Boy Scouts.

Scouting is FUN. In Cub Scouts everything is very family oriented, parents attend and participate in weekly den meetings and monthly pack meetings. The camping trips and Go See’s (Field trips) are usually open to siblings (called Me Too’s). There are a lot of traditions, prayers and funny songs, it is all about character building and respect and good fun.

Our first camping trip (as a family and with Scouts) was this past Saturday at Brazos Bend State Park. It started Friday night but we got up super early to go on Saturday – we thought one night was just right for our first trip (I was not sure how well Anabel would do).

The first thing we did was go fishing in Lake Hale. Normally there are alligators all over the park but a lot of the smaller bodies of water have dried up so that most of them have moved to the bigger lakes. So we knew our chances of seeing a gator were good.

Bella loved fishing, she didn’t seem to mind that her pole did not have a hook on it.

Jacob put a worm on his hook all by himself and learned all about fishing in a state park. This earned him his fishing belt loop!

A big ole gator crossed from the other shore right over to where we were. I only had my phone to take pictures, so this isn’t very zoomed in. It was more than close enough for kids though! (and me)

This is our decade or more old tent. We found we could just fit a queen and a twin mattress in this tent and we all were able to sleep – but there was not one inch to spare!

I did notice some folks that did not stake their tents and some who did not put on their rain fly. But it has rained EVERY single time that Will and I have ever gone camping, so I took the time to set it up, extra guidelines and all. Which turned out to be a VERY good thing.

While I was setting up the tent the kids were doing their first activity – making Cub Scout Sushi. I don’t have pictures of this but it from what Will describes it is a lot like this:

Basically a Twinkie, cut into short pieces with Mike and Ike’s rolled in fruit rollup and then you roll that in sugar sprinkles and you eat it with chop sticks. HUGELY enjoyed by boys of all ages I assure you. Next the scouts made rockets and played flag football.

I took Anabel over to the playground. This was a cool giant playground, the really fun, towering, not really too worried about safety kind – like what we had when I was a kid.

The main attraction here was this really tall metal slide. The kids would grab handfuls of pea gravel and let them roll down the slide – it was very noisy but not unpleasant– like a rain stick.

One funny thing, Bella wanted to climb a tree, I pretty much could tell she wouldn’t get far but told her, “sure go give it a try” – I was on a bench and could see her but didn’t go with her. I just believe in giving kids a little room to explore. She got about two feet off the ground and another parent ran up and pulled her off and carried her back to me! “Your little girl is trying to climb the tree” he says in a worried-what-kind-of-parent-are-you-way. Um, yeah it’s called “playing outdoors!” I thought! People are so weird, I think because she is so small that maybe people think she is younger or something. I don’t know. I just believe in letting kids try stuff, if the risk (or tree limb) is low.

After a yummy chili dog/frito pie lunch we had downtime to just play around camp.

Then we went over to the Observatory and got in line to get tickets to use the giant telescope they have there. We got a 7:30 PM time slot which was perfect, it gave us time to go on the space launch simulation (Bella cried at the end because we weren’t really landed on the moon) , explore the Nature Center and eat our sack supper (which is like a sack lunch only supper, tee hee, I thought that was funny.)

The George Observatory (located inside the park) is built up on a big hill. It was Observatory Day – basically a big free day for the public to come and use the telescopes. They had people there to give lectures and all kinds of kid’s activities like face painting and a space shuttle launch simulation. But seriously all the kids wanted to do was roll down the hill. Just envision like 80 scouts all rolling down the hill, it was hilarious. Even Will tried it out.

The Nature Center was amazing. They had baby alligators and tarantulas and snakes that the kids could touch.

Here the kids are petting a King Snake. Bella wanted to know where the Queen snake was?

Back at camp as were eating out lunch other families were coming back from the Observatory saying it was too cloudy to see anything and that it was really lame. We sort of thought about not going but in the end decided to go. It was amazing, right at our time slot the clouds parted and we had a perfect view of the moon. It was absolutely the most wonderful thing to see it through that huge telescope. The kids loved it and were so excited – we were some of the only people to see it as the clouds came back about a half hour later.

Back at camp we took showers and got settled in for the night. Then it began to rain. And thunder shook the camp. And lightening. And rain and wind and more rain. The old tent did fairly well, considering it is over ten years old and has never been waterproofed. By morning the corners were pretty wet and under the mattress was wet, but for the most part we were all dry enough. It was just a big muddy pain trying to break camp with everything so wet and muddy. Luckily we brought big garbage bags and just sort of threw everything in those to sort out later.

We were all up by 6 AM, it was the Tigers turn to serve the meal, hot chocolate and danishes and then we got the dining hall cleaned up and set up for Scouts Own Service. (basically Sunday morning church service led by the Scouts).

We struck camp shortly afterward – and headed home with one stop at Whataburger. I was muddy, wet and chilled to the bone and that was the BEST coffee and french fries I ever had!

That afternoon we put on rain ponchos and stood out in the pouring rain, using the hose to clean all the mud and leaves off all our gear. Then set everything up in the garage with fans to dry. I am STILL doing laundry! I am sort of glad for the nice sunshiny day and for having the day off Monday!