Oh yeah. Scout camp. I went to scout camp four or five summers in a row as a kid. That was pretty much my vacation as a kid, excluding that trip we took as a family to Yellowstone Park and the many trips to Salt Lake City.
This year, I got to go as one of those sober, fun-drowining and stern adult leaders, if only because our oldest son Liam got to go for the first time this year. Above, his reaction to revely, and to Teton Pete firing off one of his black-powder cannons at 6:30 am.
Yeah, that's pretty much how I reacted too. Neither one of us are morning people. But we had a full, rich day, in which we had meat at every meal. And some kind of starch. But the only fruit or vegetable we saw all day was the orange at lunch. I don't think the powdered lemonade counted.
Nevermind. We were at Scout Camp.
And so were the mosquitoes. Full force, biting, hungry. And the rain. We did get rained on our first and only morning in camp. But we didn't care. We were eating pancakes.
I was the mean Dad. I made Liam earn his First Aid Merit Badge -- his first. And that included learning CPR -- something he didn't want to do because he didn't know what it was. So I told him. He was still reluctant until I promised him $5 for our trip next week. And once he realized he could ham it up as an actor while working with the rescue dummy, he did well enough to pass. So I bought him an ice cream sandwich and promised I'd spend the rest of the day doing what he wanted to do. He wanted to swim in the creek. So we did.
We did actually have a fun time, even though by the time the mosquitoes faded in the heat of the day the horseflies came out. And I reminded myself of one of the most permanent memories I have of Island Park Scout Camp: Using the kaibo while trying to swat the mosquitoes away from the nether regions.
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