I screwed up.
There. I said it, and admitted it to everyone out there on the interwebz.
Generally, I make a tentative schedule during the time that I am up at summer camp with my 1st assistant Scoutmaster, Mr. Foray. We sit there, pondering what we are going to do with the troop during the coming "normal" Scouting season.
While up at camp, I have limited access to the internet, and therefore, I pull dates out of a hat during the month while looking at a calendar, and figuring out when events are that we can't move, things that we can, and making sure to schedule a camping trip sometime during each month.
In my effort to fill out our schedule, I had a camping trip down for Mother's Day weekend.
Yep, Mother's Day weekend.
Now, I love my mother... most of the time. I did not intend to have a camping trip that weekend, but we had so many other things going on during the month of May that it was the only weekend that was open to have a camping trip. Dances, proms, Memorial Day weekend, birthdays, Mother's Day, family trips... the list goes on. On top of all that, what better way to celebrate than having your child out of the house and the weekend to yourself? (I think you'll understand this better when he is 30 and living in your basement.) Not to mention that many people go out for dinner, or brunch or something for Mother's Day.
I figured I could have them back early and no one would be the wiser.
I was 50% right.
Half my mom's had an issue; half didn't. My mother threw in her two cents but it didn't count - I was back with plenty of time to go to a not-so-great brunch (which is a whole other rant in itself) with the rest of the clan.
In an effort to appease everyone, we chose Camp Yawpaw since we would be really close to home; the plan being to skip breakfast and pack most of the gear the night before.
So, we got there Friday night, and immediately got lost. Usually, we stay in the cabins at YawPaw in February for our build up to the Klondike Derby. This time, we were on the other side of the camp, where (apparently) no one really stays anymore. The site had a lot of dead trees laying about, and it was apparent that no one had been there in a while. The same trees that had been blown down in Sandy were also the ones that had the markers for the different sites on them - which is how we got lost. Trudging through the night with a humidity north of Equator, we found a nice campsite - though no the campsite we were looking for. Which didn't really matter as there was no one else there... since it was Mother's Day weekend.
The guys were up bright and early, and practiced there knots and lashings making quite the variety of items. First was our usual dual tripod set up for cooking, a flag pole, then a trash bag holder, and finally a practice door for their gateway at summer camp this year. Most of which was done before lunch! (Yes, guys, there is a 6am as well...)
Despite a mild downpour and the echoes of thunder around the mountain, for the most part the weekend was quite pleasing in the weather department.
Two major milestones happened this weekend: 1) this was the first weekend where we had 3, count them 3 meals on Saturday and 2) Danny ate cheese and butter! (Why he doesn't like them, I'll never know).
Speaking of Danny, I have to give him a lot of credit. He woke up Saturday looking like he went 12 rounds with Mike Tyson - his eyes were red, his sinuses swollen, and his nose a' running. (He wiped it so much he wound up with 3 mild nosebleeds during the course of Saturday). Despite his new found seasonal allergy condition, he powered through the weekend and worked with CJ getting all the lashing projects done. He's a real trooper sometimes.
As Saturday night wound down, we packed up as much as we could, so that we could get an early start on Sunday morning. As the morning came, it was pretty much packing up personal gear and tents and checking out with the Ranger.
We managed to get back to the church by 8:45am.
I think this is a new record for us.
That being all said, I'd like to give an apology to our Scouting moms - I'm sorry for scheduling a camping trip on Mother's Day weekend... though in all honesty, I'll probably wind up doing it again next year. So, sorry for that as well.
We actually contemplated taking the moms with us next year - but realized we'd be better off taking all the dads, kids, uncles and grandfathers fishing.
Think of it as our mother's day gift to you. For an extra fee, we can even leave them out there...
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Pictures to come soon... I hope.
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