Camporee

On March 26, Troop 81 left for Camporee, a competition between troops to see which troop knows their scouting skills best. After a one hour journey, Troop 81 arrived at Camp Grayson, only to find a campsite of pure dirt, and a leaky faucet. If you think the faucet was bad, you had obviously NOT listened to the weather report- thunderstorms and rain all day Saturday. Despite our position, Troop 81 managed to set up neatly, preparing for rain and mud.

In the morning, everyone woke up to what looked like a nice day. After we had a nice breakfast, Troop 81 went to the opening ceremonies at the main flagpole. There, we learned where the events were. We went to our first competition, the obstacle course. A few minutes before we were scheduled to begin, we got our first rain shower. It lasted only a few minutes, but these showers would continue all day. The obstacle course consisted of a log that we had to cross without falling off, a suspended tire that we had to jump through, a rope web that we had to crawl under, stepping stones that we had to cross, and a wall that we had to scale. Next on our agenda was the model campsite. We finished the obstacle course early, so we had a half-hour of free time. In the model campsite, we found 5 things wrong with the campsite, 5 things right with the campsite, and had to make a campsite of our own. Then we were scheduled to go to orienteering. The orienteering course was set up so that there is a question for each part of it. When we found the correct stake, it had the answer on top of it. When we finished with that, it was lunch time, so Troop 81 went back to our campsite finding it pretty dry. After a good lunch, we took part in a skit contest. Troop 81 did one of our famous skits involving water. After receiving full points for the contest, we went to first aid. It had begun to rain harder, so they moved it inside into the dining hall. When it started to rain really hard, they closed all of the events and moved the people into the dining hall. Trying to do first aid on dummies is hard enough without being crowded by hundreds of people. Even though we got through first aid, when we got back to our campsite, there was foot-deep mud. Peoples' shoes were getting stuck in the mud, and the shoes that were still on peoples' feet had pounds of mud caked up on them. Somehow we managed to cook dinner over a fire, and miraculously made it to the campfire. Because it was raining, the campfire, awards ceremony and OA tap-out were held indoors. Troop 81 placed third in the bugling contest, second in the skit contest, and second overall. The Webelos scouts that were with us placed fourth overall. One adult and four scouts from Troop 81 were tapped out: Craig Cox, Matt Lassiter, Chase Russell, Scott Steger, and Brian Thompson. After we got back to our campsite, we had another hour until taps was played.

In the morning, we were awakened by a bugler playing reveille. We loaded extremely muddy tents into our trailers and headed for Richardson. Even though the weather did not cooperate, Troop 81 had a great time!

Scott Steger