By Matthew Sankauskas
Welcome to the beginning of the scouting year! We recently had our family outing, which was an excellent start to the new year!
To kick it off, Greenbar arrived a day early and made a full swing set using their pioneering skills! The impressed scouts then split into their patrols, helped set up camp, and got ready for our first competition of the year: shelter building. Our scouts worked very hard on their shelter building, with some shelters even starting to look like log cabins!
After patrol points were distributed to the patrols, we played ultimate frisbee and cowball, a game that our scouts who went to Philmont Scout Ranch discovered while they were staying at Dean Cow, a camp there.
After the many fun games, we then split into 3 teams for whiffle ball to see which players would make the final team to go against the adults. Then, it was time. The scouts stepped up to the plate (a bundle of dried leaves), ready to bat. And boy did they! 10 to 13, the scouts won! We then got into a fire-building activity where everyone built a fire stick by stick.
Afterward, we ate BBQ that the adults had cooked up, which included hot dogs, hamburgers, Caesar salad, chips, cookies, and more. After cleanup, we got into making our Dutch oven desserts. We heated up the coals and mixed the ingredients to perfection while the older scouts got a fire going for the campfire.
After the fire was mature, we put the Dutch oven desserts on to cook and gathered around the campfire for our skits and songs, after which we served up our delectable desserts. After everyone was settled, some of our scouts told stories. One of the notable ones was about a zebra who was looking for his father. After a long time of searching, he saw a piano and said, “Dad?”. Our scouts then had our usual night hike where you could see many wonderful stars.
The next day, a small group of our scouts, as well as Dr. Lin, went out early in the morning on a hike where one of our scouts completed their trail cooking requirements. While they were out on a hike, our scouts woke up and got into their patrol cooking for breakfast.
Once everyone had finished breakfast and returned to camp, we got into camp cleanup and our campwide sweep, where we sought out trash that was not found earlier or left by previous campers. During the sweep, the adults went on a hike led by Matty (me) to bond and get to know each other and the program better.
After finding all the trash and after the adults had returned and camp cleanup was fully finished, we got into our first closing circle of the year. Many of our scouts shared what their favorite part of the outing was, and everyone agreed that they were looking forward to our next campout.
Until next time, I’m Matthew Sankauskas, and this is T42 News
