Lake Pleasant Outing
This was the ‘flexible’ family outing – A core group left as usual from the church on Friday night, but people from our crazy-busy troop came and went to meet their schedules over the next 24 hours. Multiple scouts were taking ACT tests before heading out for the lake, and another scout had to be a handy man in a school play, and still made it out after his character ‘expired’ while falling most dramatically off a ladder. A couple of adults came after working on taxes. In the end, it was all worth it. The perfect day consisted of Mountain man breakfast, carrying the canoes down the stairs, down the hill, and then after a quick orientation in the finer points of canoeing, boat races through the west lagoon, followed by boat races to the far point, followed by swamping and righting canoes, and after lunch – more of the same for much of the afternoon.
Funny things heard during the outing:
“If you don’t put sausage in your Mountain Man dutch oven breakfast, it’s not a Mountain Man – it’s more like a Hill Man.”
“That Tik Tok family on the lake with the loud music was here last time! They are here EVERY time.”
“If you can punch yourself in the face, are you strong or weak?”
“I don’t have to practice sleeping in my backpacking tent for Petrified Forest, I’m already a PhD in sleeping.”
“That’s Newton’s law of high school play comedy. The handyman doesn’t fall far from the ladder.”
And an actual useful learning moment also occurred. Adult leaders were a bit confused upon hearing of an animal encounter. One scout described how his tent mate got up in the middle of the night and went nose to nose with a coyote, which just stood and stared at him. Since that didn’t sound quite normal, the adults followed up with the nocturnal scout. He described the encounter, ending the story with going him nose to nose with a burro, which looked lazily at him until sauntering away. Turning back to the original scout, he protested ‘coyote, burro – same thing,’ upon which an ‘Animals of the Sonoran Desert’ discussion with this city scout ensued. Other animal encounters included a magnificent soaring bald eagle, the business end of a skunk – did you know that the stripe is also on the underside of a skunk’s tail? Now we do too! And a complete mini-bear (chipmunk/squirrel) family reunion over the breakfast leftover ‘buffet trash bag’ on the scout’s picnic table
It again was simply a spectacular time in our wonderful state’s great outdoors. This was the first outing led by this boy scout leader, and at times he was frustrated that things didn’t go exactly as he had planned. It of course all came together great, just in a different configuration. One new scout had never camped and never canoed, and throughout the outing, became completely hooked on both, and was dismayed to leave the water for dinner. An uncle of this new scout, who also happens to be an Eagle Scout, attended with T648 for the first time, and provided our scout leader with feedback that this was the best organized scout trip he had ever attended. Is it any wonder why Scouting is such a great program? A boy grows in leadership skills, a new scout becomes totally immersed in the great out-of-doors and the camaraderie of the patrol method, and adults are blessed just to be along for the amazing ride with these maturing young men!
See you in the Petrified Forest!
