Scout Camp

Just got back from scout camp in Sharon, VT.  We had a great time: I took T and A, even though A is underage:).  We attended the "trail to first class" course the entire time, and learned a lot of useful things from Br. Bosen, our kilt-wearing expert!  Some highlights:

Red Efts were all over the place: I think we found 18 or 19 of them.  Really cool!

We spent a lot of time making fires, because what scout doesn't love making fires.  We used flint and steel, lighters, etc.  We worked on fresh fires, making fires from coals, and then we had the opportunity to work on making a fire in the rain thanks to Br. Worthington, who teaches survival classes around the US.  I'll never look at fire-making the same again!

Finally, we went on a 5-mile hike the last day.  We had lunch on Patriarch Hill, overlooking the Joseph Smith memorial.  We visited the Visitors Center and had a nice run-through by the missionaries there, then ended at a nearby lake (a pond out here, but really a lake) where the boys waded in the water and tried to catch fish.  We learned all about New England forests, how to spot signs of old roads, old farm fields, etc.  It's really amazing how most of these areas were totally clear cut for farming at one point, but are very dense forests now.  The farms were largely abandoned around the industrial revolution, and the minerals and climate just encouraged massive re-forestation.  Even our yard has pretty clear signs of being clear cut at one point.  Hopefully this will work with the rain forests too someday.

One of the fun things for me was meeting all of the leaders, mostly from the Vermont Stakes.  Really nice people, and I was ready to move to Vermont and start tapping my trees to make maple syrup by the end of the camp.