We rose bright and early on Wednesday for another great day at camp. The weather continues to be comfortable in the mornings and evenings but can get quite warm in the afternoon. We have not had any rain since Monday so all the activities have all continued as scheduled.
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| The leaning tower of waffles. |
Breakfast this morning included both Eggo waffles and French toast sticks, which was more than enough food for the boys. Most ate the French toast sticks and began a game of Jenga with the waffles.
Wednesday is the mid-point for the week and the point at which everyone has settled into their routine. The scouts have become comfortable with their surroundings, their classes, and their fellow bunkmates. The five Adirondacks are divided so that the youngest scouts are together in one, the next oldest group is spread between two, and the oldest scouts occupy the last two. One group of older scouts has dubiously blamed an odd smell in their shelter on a single pair of socks. I'm sure there is more to it than that but the owner did appear in a new pair of socks this morning so the issue has possibly been mitigated.
Merit badge classes continue to be the main focus for the boys, although they do get a break on
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New socks make an
appearance at breakfast. |
Thursday for the opportunity for free range events of all types. More on that tomorrow. In the canoeing class, Conner and Rhett worked on the requirement that they capsize the canoe, right it, climb back in, and paddle it to shore. They successfully got the canoe upright with Connor aboard but he wound up leaving Rhett behind to swim back to shore on his own. Rhett has also been taking reptile and amphibian study, which meets at the nature lodge, but they also hiked up to a waterfall above the lake on Wednesday to search for reptiles of all sorts. The staff has claimed that there are dragons and dinosaurs as part of the nature study. However, the boys have rightly questioned the validity of this claim. There was also supposedly a sighting of a couple of snakes, which morphed into a rumor of deadly copper-headed water rattlers. Jackson M. and Justice have also been doing reptile and amphibian study and have been fascinated by the thought of these snakes.
The TNT scouts; Justice, Jackson M., David, Oliver, and Johnson; have all been divided up into different patrols as part of their program. Each has been learning different skills each day such as compass and map navigation on Wednesday. They will put these skills to use on their 5 mile hike on Thursday. In addition to their scout skills, they have also been taking swimming merit badge in the afternoons. David and Oliver have proclaimed this their favorite activity but the others seem less than entranced by the idea of swimming in the lake.
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| James works on a technological masterpiece as part of Robotics merit badge. |
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| Whit, James, Connor, and George perfect their woodcarving skills. |
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| Will seems to use every free moment to read... |
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| ...including while eating. |
Mail for various scouts has been coming through regularly. Some have been packages that included games and snacks while other letters have contained cash that was quickly spent. There were also two packages from Amazon to Will and James that appeared to contain books. Will is always in danger of running out of something to read.
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| Hunter, Trey, and Luke prepare to be entertained. |
The final event of the day was a skit night campfire in the amphitheater. This was the opportunity for scouts to show off their dramatic skills. While these types of events usually result in some rather well-worn skits, there were several that were quite new and inventive or contained twists on the old formulas. Our scouts chose not to put on a skit, which was just as well given the crowded field of entrants.
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| One of the skits - as seen from above. |
We have also been graced with the presence of our newest Assistant Scoutmaster, Joe Lovvorn. Ronnie is shipping out on Thursday and Joe will be with us the rest of the week. More photos from Wednesday are found
here.
