Getting Caught Up

It is Tuesday morning, about 6:45. Everyone else in Ft. Bill is still asleep and will get up in about 15 minutes. A few people from Troop 99 next door in Two Harbors are beginning to stir. I usually try to get up about 6 so I can go help the food delivery guy unload. While helping is its own reward, he has been known to give troops that help something extra. Yesterday he gave us a tray of Granny's caramel rolls and today we got a tray of cinnimon rolls.
Back to Saturday...right after the bus rolled out, I hopped in the car and headed "up north" (to admin) to settle up week one and to pick up Nick. We're suppose to check out by 11, but we did not get the final paperwork from our commisioner until 10:30, so we were a bit late. Checking out a troop our size always takes a while, so it was noon before I finifhed and went to get Nick. We headed back to camp to try to get organized. While I was gone the Scouts had gotten all of their stuff situated. Mr. Dewitz went golfing with his son, and drove three of the older scouts to the Paul Bunyon Bike Trail to go biking for the day. Fotunately, Mr. Fischer was able to stay and extra day, so we had enough drivers to take everyone else into town. I had Nick and five second year scouts. We went to Zorbas Pizza in Detroit Lakes and saw Mr. Oas and Mr. Broberg there with their crews having Pizza too. After Zorbas we went to Walmart for some $1 movie candy and other essentials. Then we headed off to a 3:50 showing of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
After the movie we headed straight to Ice Crackin for out traditional Saturday night dinner of THUNDER BURGERS (or the 1/4 pound kids meal in my case). The kids love being back in a video game/pool table environment, even if only for one night.
After Ice Crackin, it was back to camp for some much needed sleep.
Sunday morning, everyone was up rather late, but once we started frying bacon, scouts magically started appearing from their tents. Mr. Broberg treated us to some of his Mother's receipe Deep Fried French toast. We made it with Great Harvest Pancake mix, eggs, milk, vanilla, and some powered sugar we bummed off the staff. Everyone agreed it was really great and tasted like something you would get from the state fair.
After breakfast, Nick and I headed off to Family Camp for a shower and to do laundry, since we didn't have time to do it when we were in town. We ran a little late and had to race back up to Buckskin to get Nick back to work in time. Mr. Broberg, Mr. Dewitz, and Mr. Fischer took off for home Sunday morning. Mr. McGrath to a load of Scouts into town for a while, and later in the afternoon just about all of the Scouts rode their bikes to Tamarack (a near by resort). People at lunch kind of late when they felt like it. They gave us chicken chunks, mash potatoes, and corn, but we decided to make chicken tacos with left-over tortillas, lettuce, and cheese. We can get creative with cooking when we try. Sunday dinner was cheeseburgers again. The menu is pretty much the same each week, so except for the occasional reference, I won't repeat the menu on week two.
We met with our commisioner Sunday afternoon, and got rid of some extra equipment we still had. We had some parent visitors on sunday too. Hunter's parents stopped by to visit and AJ's parent stopped to drop him off. Things get kind of sloppy over the middle weekend, with all the activities during week one, all the moving around, and the relaxed atmosphere on the weekend. It is not unusual for campsites to get pretty sloppy, so Sunday late Sunday afternoon we start working wit (on) them to get their sites cleaned up for fresh start for the new week. By bed time we usually have them in pretty good shape. Since this is our second week, we were allowed to skip the campwide tour, but I did sit in on the Scoutmaster intro meeting at 7. Our second week officially started at the opening campfire at 9:30. Last week, the staff was out of propane lantern fuel, so they used Many Point Red (kerosine) laterns to light the skits and we could not see what was going on. This week, they used two propane lanterns in each reflector, and we could see! We also did something we had never done before! We sat together in the first three rows. We could see AND hear what was going on. We still showed our scout spirit by doing all the traditional chants and songs. Sitting in the front row on the other side was Mr. Oas' old troop and we got quite the chant going back and forth between them (especially the I got Spirit chant). Having these twqo troops in the front row basically made us the pre-campfire entertainment before the staff came in. Besides hearing and seeing better, the skits actually were better. The theme of the skits was the same (superheroes), but the addition of the nearly random Lawnmower Man was hilarious.
After the campfire we headed back to camp, and bed.
I'll cover Monday and Tuesday (today) in the next post, I'm almost caught up. It's 2:15 right now and the Scouts are off to the Climbing Tower.
That's all for now from Many Point. YIS... Jon Yearous