Christopher and I had a nice trip to Canda with the Boy Scouts over the weekend. We meet the other boys and carpooled up from Kent, WA to Vancouver,BC for a weekend, overnight hiking trip. What a joy it was riding up with a carload of boys for the 5 hour drive. NOT! Well, ok it wasn't too bad. Our only complaint was the owner of the van's precious little boy was a raving lunatic that picked on several of the boys riding in the van including Christopher. I intervened when I just couldn't take it anymore, but the kid's Dad let a whole lot of craziness go on without a word.
We all had to setup tents as soon as we arrived and then setup the kitchen and the Troop "station" as well. This event had a large number of "stations" that were all manned by individual troops and they all had different games, tests, and scenarios for the scouts to do. Our troop had an obstacle cource where they visiting scouts were given several items and told that one of their group 
had been injured and that the remaining scouts had to create a litter or stretcher and carry the injured scout through the obstacle course with hitting any barriers. They had to place a raw egg behind the injured scout's neck as they were transporting him through the course to make it a bit more difficult.
had been injured and that the remaining scouts had to create a litter or stretcher and carry the injured scout through the obstacle course with hitting any barriers. They had to place a raw egg behind the injured scout's neck as they were transporting him through the course to make it a bit more difficult. The new scouts had to make dinner for the rest of the us, so Chris and the other new scouts got busy and learned how to make spagetti for everyone. Once everyone got their dinner we all got ready to hike. We broke into small groups, got our trail maps and headed out.
He got to our first station and they weren't even ready for us! We helped them out by stringing some twine for them and helping put together spider webs of twine as well. They gave us "full points" for helping and we were on our way to the next station. We managed to get to a few stations and then it got dark. We got to one station that had an obstacle course that was crazy! That just meant that the scouts loved it. The station clipped a padlock onto a climbing line and told the scouts that they had to get the lock all the way to the other end. The line wound around trees, up a rope ladder and all around the area! They all had to work together to get through the course and they all had a great time doing it.
They did another station where they needed to pick a "victim" to transport them through some obstacles. Of course, they picked Christopher since he was the smallest scout in our group. They put him in their makeshift stretcher and carried him over some obstacles. They had to carry him while walking on milk crates to simulate walking across rocks. As you can see, he enjoyed the trek. He made it through the test in one piece and didn't get dropped.
There were enough stations setup so that the scouts could be up all night hiking to all the stations. We hiked through about half the stations when we got back to our home station. We checked in and decided to call it a night at around 11:45 pm. We had to get up early the next morning and we were the last ones up and packed to leave. We had an uneventful drive back and of course all the scouts in the van conked out and slept. It was a really fun trip and I'm sure we won't forget it!
