What I Learned Today 11/10/14

I am dedicating this blog to my camping trip experience.

Cub Scouts:

I went to the Webelos-Ree camping trip this past weekend. Friday night, Bennett and I pitched my tent together with the help of my patrol leader. We had a campfire we all sat around before bed. That night, it got below freezing, so we earned the Cold Camper patch. I was warm enough in my sleeping bag and blanket, but I got homesick. That's Bennett in our tent!

 

On Saturday, we had eggs with cheese and sausage and cocoa and fruit punch for breakfast. They cooked everything in two big metal pots with charcoal on top next to the campfire. I had the punch. Then we raised the flag and went into the big building with old Boy Scout memorabilia. I saw lots of cool stuff and took pictures of it all. Then we made our patrol's flag, and we called ourselves The Stickman Rebels. Next we started going to our stations to earn our pins.

First we went to the climbing tower. That's a tower you climb up then zip line down. I didn't do this one because I'm afraid of heights. It was funny because a lot of the adults and staff were scared to do it, too.

Next we had our den chief, a Boy Scout, and an adult teach us some neat things with ropes. The first knot I learned was the Bowline knot. Primarily used for rescue, you start out by making a loop and putting the other side of the loop under the loop, then you pull up that part making it stand tall like a tree. Then the other part of the rope, called the rabbit, goes up the hole (loop), around the tree, and back down the hole. Then you carefully tighten and it's done! Next we moved on to the square knot, taught to us by Peter, our den chief. Used to connect two ropes of equal length. First you grab the right and go over the left one, then you get that same rope on the other side and put it over that one again. Then you tighten and you have done the Square knot! Lastly, the adult taught us whipping and lashing, which is the older way to make sure that your rope ends don't split. To stop that from happening, you make a loop and put it at the top of the rope near where it splits, then you grab the tiny rope and you twist it around and around the big rope until it it can't go any further. Then you put the tiny rope into the loop, tighten, then you've successfully lashed a rope. He also showed us the modern way to do it. You take a lighter and put the fire close to the parts of the rope coming apart quickly multiple times until it starts melting down. Then it dries and hardens and you won't have a problem.

 

 

Next we went to the Leave No Trace station. At this station, we did a game called Camp, Oh Yeah! Camp, Oh No! In the game, they would pick a random question, and if the answer was yes or true you'd go to one side, and if you thought the question was false or no, you'd go to the other side. The questions were about taking care of nature. For example, A biker and a hiker were on a road. They were on opposite ends of the same side coming at each other, blocking each other's path. Who do you think was supposed to get off the road to let the other person by? Yes is biker. No is hiker. The answer was no to the biker because it is the law that a hiker always has the right of way, so the biker has to get out if the way. We also learned that you should never take anything, not even a rock or leaf, and you should leave your campsite cleaner than when you go there. Another thing is that if you can cover up an animal with your thumb in your eyesight range (put thumb in front of eye at arm's length), then you are far enough away to not disturb it. If your thumb is covering up the animal, you are far away enough not to disturb it or its habitat.

Next we went Geocaching where we used several gps systems to locate hidden caches with “treasure” in them. We each got to keep one thing, but we had to put something else back inside it. I got a compass ring, but it didn't work.

Second to last, we did camp cooking, which was my favorite because we got to make stuff and eat it. First we made pizza wraps out of tortillas, tomato sauce, pepperoni, and cheese that we wrapped up like a burrito. Using a handmade oven made from one paper box (like a big shoebox), tinfoil wrapped on the inside, and two pie pans screwed together on the bottom, we poked four holes (two on each side of the paper box), and put two metal bars across the inside of the box through the holes. Then we put charcoal in the top pie pan, and that makes the oven. We took two pizza wraps and set them on a metal tray on metal bars to heat them up. That was my favorite food we made. We also made a taco in a bag by filling one big bag with one bag full of Doritos, one half bag of cooked meat, one half bag of cheese, and then you crumble it all up and pour it on the plate. Then we made mini pies by taking these long poles with grates on the end to press stuff together and putting four slices of bread, two on each side, and putting our filling from a can in it. We pressed it together and stuck it next to the campfire until it browns the bread. Finally, we made bag omelettes by filling a bag with two raw egg,s cooked ham, and cheese. We put the bag into boiling water while hanging on to it and that cooked the egg. Then we ate it.

My other favorite station was science. We learned about Newton's first law of motion: an object in motion tends to stay in motion and an object at rest tends to stay at rest. We shot rockets out of a manual and an automatic rocket launcher. The rocket that we used was a rocket made out of paper. Using air pressure and putting 35psi in the automatic launcher, the rocket shot up so high we could barely see it. Using the manual launcher, we had to use 65psi to make it go a little higher than the automatic one.

We ended the night with dinner at the campsite. We had potatoes, sausage and cheese wrapped in tinfoil and set next to the fire to get hot.