Let's Go Camping!

Maybe it's because I don't have an RV and have never gone camping in one, but that commercial for RV World or whatever it is that yells "Let's go camping!" makes me smile a little every time. To me, that's not camping. You gotta vehicle, beds instead of sleeping bags, refrigeration, all the comforts of home.

To me, camping is tent camping. You have to carry everything you're going to need for the trip in at one time. The food has to be packed in ice. Clothes have to be rolled up and packed away neatly. You have to plan it through because there's no room for extra stuff.

But for a real camping experience, go along with almost 100 other people, where about 50% of them have never been camping. Make sure you have about 45 of them under the age of 10, and a good portion of them on their first trip. Make yourself responsible (with one other person) for their experience, and you get the feeling of what it's like to be a Cub Scout Leader at a Cub N Family weekend.
Of course, the activities were planned and put on by the Boy Scouts. They had all kinds of fun things for the boys to do, including the highlight of every fall camp, BB guns and Archery. But I spent the last month getting out the information, signing people up and collecting money, registering with the scouts, and then answering the fifty million questions that come up from the new people. And the occasional last minute emergency, like the family that didn't know until 4 days out that they were supposed to come and the boy couldn't be left by himself. Problems, stress, silly questions...

So why do I do it?

On our way to one activity, our Cubmaster was leading the way with me bringing up the rear of this parade of little boys. He was using his hiking staff and one of the boys asked another "Why does he have that stick?"
   "Because he's old," was the answer. Now imagine 30 8-year-old boys going "Oooooohhhhhhh", Reminds me of the little green aliens in Toy Story. "The claw"

High temperature Saturday 82, not a cloud in the sky. Lows at night 52. Perfect sleeping weather, and keeps the bugs down. MARVELOUS weather.

We were sitting in front of our tents resting when one of the new scouts came running up from the woods. "Mr. Dan! Mr. Dan! Look! Look!" I looked, and he was carrying a skeleton skull of what we think was a deer that he had found out there."Isn't this great! I'm taking it to school!"

There was one little boy who had never been camping before, and he was the most excited, enthusiastic kid you ever saw. Every move he made he reported to me in detail. At the campfire Saturday night, he was grinning so big making s'mores that I thought his face would split. He was talking up a storm, then suddenly he was quiet. He'd had such a big day that he fell asleep almost in mid-sentence. Friday night we could hear him whispering to his dad in the tent for a long time. Saturday night he begged his dad to be quiet and let him sleep.

We did a flag retirement ceremony Saturday night at the campfire, a very formal, solemn affair. To be brief, the flag is cut into pieces so that it's no longer a flag, and each piece is laid on the fire. The Union with the stars is not cut because Lincoln said after the Civil War that "no man will separate the union", and it is put on the fire last in one piece. One of our new parents is a veteran, and recently retired. We asked him to do the union. As he stepped away, parents and scouts gave him an ovation. Without prompting.

Those 5 examples are why I do it. There are several others from this weekend. What a great trip. What an honor.