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The day came and our sons brought the flyer about joining Cub Scouts again and so we made the jump and joined Cub Scout Pack 732. It has been one of the greatest things ever for our family. I'll make a top 10 reasons why.
#10 We have gotten to meet a lot of other kids and parents from Ogden Elementary and Eaton Elementary, as well as other schools.
#9 We have gotten to visit and meet people from Peace Baptist Church who sponsor the pack.
#8 The boys are actually more excited about something other than video games and television
#7 The boys are more excited about school - they can earn their rank for the current school year but to work on the next they need to move up to the next grade in school (hey every little thing helps)
#6 As a parent I have an opportunity to put a lot of life experiences into a program and we get to talk about some abstract concepts. The Cub Scout Manual has a lot of Achievements based on Honesty, Leadership, Cooperation, etc. Others about family heritage, and religion.
#5 Get to use a lot of those Boy Scout skills I learned while going to 2nd Class Scout.
#4 Get to brush up on a lot of those skills I didn't learn to well while being a Boy Scout :)
#3 Get to see my sons learn new knowledge and skills on almost a daily basis.
#2 The entire family is getting to learn about new recreational opportunities and opportunities for being good stewards of the land and citizens of our community.
#1 The optional freeze the keester camping trips and sun burn fishing trips in pursuit of Cub Scout accolades :)
Coming into our first year of Cub Scouts my sons are very eager to earn everything, which is one of the reasons we visited www.lnt.org, which is the website for Leave No Trace. We all took the online training there in addition to the information on www.scouting.org about the Cub Scout Leave No Trace Award. But we sat down and figured out how they could earn their Wolf and Bear Badges (Colby is in the 2nd Grade and Caleb is in the 3rd Grade) as soon as possible.
We originally had planned to get everything done by December, but things fell into place, and with a lot of hard work on their part they just finished their rank requirements on November 13 after a trip to Carolina Beach State Park. All Cub Scouts have to earn their Bobcat Badge first regardless of rank, and that took them a week starting around September 21st. The Bobcat Badge introduced them to the customs and practices of the Cub Scouts as well as got us to go see the Scouting website. Which was pretty cool because almost all of the basic leadership training for Cub Scout Leaders is on the website and even though I wasn't a registered member of Scouting parents can still take the training to see what information is given. Each component takes 15-45 minutes to cover. Also its good stuff to know as parents are asked to volunteer to lead some den meetings.
So anyway Carolina Beach State Park...my sons have covered a bit of what we did. They actually came up with the idea of keeping a family camping log or website themselves, which surprised me. They both have individual Hiking/Camping logs that we keep together as son and father. But the whole blog thing was pretty surprising. I didn't want to just give them e-mail addresses of their own at this point but blogger is very cool about that sort of thing. Their blogs are colbyland.blogspot.com and boyscamplife.blogspot.com. They are getting used to writing and posting still but their hand is in it. Especially Colby, as he switched his background from an awesome picture of Mount Everest to flames.
I don't know what the fascination is between boys and fire, especially camp fires. I think other than the fishing and hiking that their favorite thing to do was build and watch the fire. Roast marshmallows, add another log, build a cooking fire, add more logs, the fire is getting low, let's add more logs. Thankfully we capped ourselves to one bag of Wal-Mart Instant Light Charcoal and two bundles of logs which we bought at the Carolina Beach State Park Marina.
It was a nice trip. A great thing about camping is that you are limited to eating what you can bring, and though we were all hoping to dine on a nice big Flounder on Friday, peanut butter and jelly would have to do. At every meal the boys, deprived of a refrigerator within a 3 second dash, were actually very thankful for what they had to eat. It also helped that as Cub Scouts they needed to help plan the menu and cook the meals. Now if only the Cub Scouts would add Achievements involving KP (kitchen patrol i.e. clean the dishes) parents across the world would rejoice. Colby actually cooked a meal of hot dogs and cheese burgers, corn on the cob, and other sides, which is pretty awesome for a 7 year old. All I was required to do was use the camp knife for various cutting chores, but other than that he was able to use the tongs and spatula. Of course he shied away from placing our corn in their aluminum foil jackets right on to the coals himself. But honestly some of the best meals we had were out there.
Our first night we had made chicken fajitas (most of our cooking was done on a Lodge Cast Iron Griddle).
The recipe was:
1 pack of fajita seasoning (taco seasoning could have been used)
1 pound of chicken breasts cut up
1 cup of onions chopped
1 Anaheim pepper chopped (I love these)
1/2 Cup Italian Dressing
1/2 Cup Water
1 pack of flour tortillas
1 plastic bag
So first we got the fire going with our charcoal, which takes about 20 minutes to get hot (turn to white) and placed our griddle down to warm up. Then we took our fajita seasoning, water, and Italian dressing and mixed them up in the bag. Then we put our pepper, onion, and chicken into the bag to marinate. In hindsight we could have done all of that at home and refrigerated the mixture, but I really like my Anaheim peppers fresh. When the coals were hot and the griddle warmed we put our ingredients on. The oil in the Italian dressing should help keep the ingredients from sticking but try to keep your vegetables at a cooler location on the griddle until the chicken is browned and cooked through, then switch the chicken and vegetables so the peppers and onions are also browned then removed from the fire.
My son Caleb has that kid thing about not mixing the food up, so we had some Texsport Mess Kits (each has a small pot, frying pan, and plate) that we were able to split up the ingredients with. We could have warmed the tortillas up by putting them in foil and placing them in the coals also but we opted not to. But the boys loved it (Daddy got to plan that meal) and I'm always happy when they don't turn their noses up at something I cook.
Now, it was Veteran's Day weekend and we were going to Carolina Beach State Park. So this is the whole story. We had been gradually gathering camping equipment since they had started camping. We had gotten a killer deal on an Ozark Trail 9x7 dome tent from walmart.com. They were around 30 dollars for a 4 person tent and we had managed to pull the miracle off of erecting the thing the week before. I had always used A-frame and pup tents. The last time I had my hands on a dome tent I threw it away (it was a gift from the company my wife once worked for and didn't have instructions) as it was beyond my imagination on how to put up. We had spent the week checking out our gear and upgraded two of our sleeping bags. One was an old Sierra Designs 0-degree mummy bag for Colby. I was going to use a 20-degree mummy bag that we had gotten through Amazon.com made by Wenzel (Wenzel Santa Fe). This was a good call on one side as temperatures that night fell down to 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Unfortunately the bag was too small for my frame. Which is not Wenzel's fault, but that I'm 5'10 and need to lose a lot of weight. So my son Caleb got that bag and I got his Ozark Trails 30-degree bag which fit me enough, still we hadn't gotten proper bag pads and so I was cold most of the night.
We had packed everything we thought we would need, and some extra, for the trip and it was a good thing my wife didn't come, since all our gear (packs, bags, fishing equipment, cooler, buckets, camp mess kit, and food) took up every space of the car. The night before my wife went to her mom's house in Rocky Point which left us boys and entire night to make final preparations. Of course we could have packed better. See not only is this our first camping trip, we're also using it as practice for future trips. And boy do we need practice. I struggled with my Medium ALICE pack (no frame) I swear it weighed 85 pounds, my son Caleb struggled with his external frame pack, and Colby said he had no problems with his Brine day pack (though we hadn't stopped to fit him properly for it and it slung around badly). I was curious about all of this and on our way down to the park we stopped at Wal-Mart to get a bucket, some extra work gloves, and a luggage scale, which they were selling for $8. When we got to camp I weighed all our packs and found out that I had definitely had packed poorly. My pack was 35 pounds (not 85) and out of balance, Caleb's was 18 pounds (3 pounds over his limit) and not adjusted to his frame, and Colby's was just right at 12 pounds.
We then went to McDonald's for breakfast as one last tribute to "real food". After gulping down our biscuits we headed to the Carolina Beach State Park Marina. As part of their Cub Scout work (Fishing Electives, Fishing Belt Loop, and Fishing Pin oh my) they needed to spend at least 3o minutes fishing, 30 minutes practicing casting, and fishing with home made rods. This all was hampered by temperatures in the 50s with a 15-20 mph wind coming off the Cape Fear River. See how happy they look :)
My son Caleb on the left is holding a Zebco 202, which was part of a rod, reel, and tackle combo at Wal-Mart for something like $16 dollars and the two other rods leaning against the car next to my son Colby are bamboo poles they made themselves. We were only really able to use these in the Marina as trying to use the bamboo poles with the wind blowing in would have been pretty useless. We kept fishing for close to 3 hours with the boys taking turns with the Zebco to practice casting. It was the bamboo poles which were actually getting some bites but no good strikes to catch anything.
We then went to find a camp site and then set up camp. By noon we were all hungry and sat down for a nice meal of PB&J and Stackers chips. The rest of the day we worked on Cub Scout activities and explored around the camp ground before having our Chicken Fajitas.
The next morning was going to a be a big day. We got up and made bacon and eggs. Now Caleb had planned this meal. Bacon, Boiled Eggs, and Toast, right? Well he says that he wants the eggs over medium instead of boiled, which sounds good to me and Colby. I then proceed to make them in one of the Texsport frying pans and these eggs are the best I've ever made, and the bacon is great, and the toast...well was Cajuned :) So here's Caleb and Colby muling on bacon and toast. "Boys, aren't you going to eat your eggs"? To which they both said no. Eggs while camping. After milk I think eggs are the most difficult thing to bring on a camping trip and here they turned down my epic awesome over medium wonders. My mouth dropped and I think they planned it that way as they giggled at me. So I ate all four eggs and began to wonder how bad that would be for me.
After breakfast we cleaned up and secured the camp and then had a pretty good talk about poisonous plants, compasses, map reading, hiking safety, Leave No Trace, etc. Then we got Colby's pack straightened out for the hike, along with trail food, camera, clip board for identifying birds, trees, poisonous plants, topo maps and trail maps. We headed off for what was supposed to probably be a 2-3 hour hike. First we headed down the Camp Trail to the Visitor's Center where we stopped to take pictures, and look at the exhibits. I was hoping for better exhibits than what we saw, as the building is pretty massive but short on content. There was room filled with tactile displays (and a nice geology presentation) and a nice board on the history of the park, and two other displays but hopefully there will be more in the future.
We then went up the trail to the park's Swamp Trail to go visit the primitive camp sites. Regular camp sites at Carolina Beach State Park are organized in to two rings of sites around a shower/bathroom facilities. Each site costs $20 per night and has a pea gravel pad, picnic table, steel fire ring and various additional hardware (ours had a 6' tall pole for lanterns). You have to put your tent up on the gravel pad which can be a chore to do and not as soft as you might think...LOL. They also have one water outlet every 3 or 4 camp sites along the road. The primitive camp grounds only a vault toilet (outhouse) and you have to pack in your water (about 200 yards from the road or 300 yards from the nearest parking lot. But other than that the primitive group camp sites look to be real nice, especially in the late fall to early spring. There are also no "gravel pads". I know Leave No Trace encourages erecting tents on durable surfaces but...oh well by a sleeping bag pad next time. Picture below is of the boys hamming up at the primitive camp site #2.
After this we hiked up to the Oak Toe Trail, then got on the Sugarloaf Trail. Let me just say my pictures at Sugarloaf Dune don't do it justice. While not as big as Jockey's Ridge in Nags Head, NC this dune gives a great view of the river. Does the air start to get thin at 50' above sea level? The boys at first didn't get the point and were ready to head back to camp for lunch. But I explained to them that when ever you go on a hike, you want there to be a moment, I don't know a "money shot", the view or experience that makes wandering through a canvas of oak and pine trees worthwhile. I think they saw it when we got to the observation point at Sugarloaf Dune.
Sugarloaf Dune's observation point has a rail and several dune fences to try and keep people from walking around on the dune. Most of the dune looks like the picture above with oaks and other shrubs securing the ancient hill from being blown away by wind and rain. Unfortunately in some spots the fences have been knocked down. The rail has been carved up by various people over time. The white powder sand that you see in the middle runs from the observation point down to the bottom of the dune comes from people running down the hill. At one time it may have been just a simple path but all the foot traffic has made it hard for plants to hold down the sand and now there is a gaping hole in the ground cover that if left uncorrected could one day diminish the dune. We are planning to bring this up at the next pack committee meeting and contact the Park's head ranger to see if a conservation project would help here.
We left Sugarloaf Dune to head back to camp, looping along the Sugarloaf trail, by the parks several lakes. By the time we made it back we were all pretty hungry and weary and ready for some PB&J. This was also the night that Colby was going to be cooking us hotdogs and hamburgers and he was very eager to get started.
The night before we had headed off to bed not long after dark since it was going to be so cold. This night we were going to try and stay up as late as possible. Yet with it only getting down to 44 degrees we all had been worn down by the days fun and headed off to bed managing only to make it to 7:30 or so.
The next morning we packed up our gear and headed down to the Marina to try our luck at fishing. My wife Vickie had asked the brave hunters to bring home a flounder. So now with the warmest day of the weekend and the tide timed right and no wind we headed out. While we saw some small fish and an old fisherman had caught two small bluefish a few yards down, but we just couldn't get anything. The boys were determined to stay out as long as possible to catch a fish, but wanted to go a different place. So we took a shot at Snow's Cut Park which was nearby. We got a few casts in with the rod but the tide was running fast and we ended up getting snagged on something in the water. So with the promise that we would try again next weekend to catch a fish and maybe ask their Grandma Nancy to take them out in the boat to one of the inlets I finally convinced them it was time to go home.
We had a fun three days and are planning to have more adventures. All told, the boys finished up with their Wolf and Bear Badges, and earned the Fishing and Hiking Belt Loops, and the Hiking Pin.
