Celebrate 100 Years of BSA...

With some gnomes!

Looks like they ran out of good ideas for making money off the centennial celebration. All kidding aside, I'm excited about the anniversary. There's a new handbook, BSA national is going on tour, and a good time to reflect on the past and press on into the future.

Night Frisbee

Last weekend I went camping and had a really good time. The best part was tossing the frisbee around late at night. To up the ante, the frisbee was black. It was fun trying to catch a near invisible disc flying at your head. Naturally there were the occasional collisions between scouts and plastic, but no serious harm came out of it.

Last night at Scouts we held elections for leadership positions. We also looked at some patrol patches for ideas for a new patrol name. Currently they are the Highlanders because we are the Highland ward. Here's the website we looked at. They narrowed it down to Flaming Flying Squirrels, Flaming Marshmallows, Ninjas, Purple Platypus, Duct Tape, and Spicy Tacos. Fun fun. It was good to see them excited. I'm hoping this will give them more of a reason to wear their scout uniforms.

Scout Camp

I was able to spend the whole week with my boys down in Hoosier National Forest at Camp Maumee. We had lots of fun even though our first day got off to a rough start. I forgot some important papers that we needed to check in so I had to drive back home and pick them up. (2 hour round trip) On top of that, a mile outside of camp, Bro Bixler's tire exploded. So the scouts were stuck for a bit while I went to pick up a tire while I got the papers. Oh, and during my 2 hour trip getting things we had an enormous downpour that flooded some streets in Bloomington. After that terrible first morning, things went really well. We went swimming in the lake, fished, and the boys worked hard on their merit badges. The bishop came to visit and wouldn't stand too near the boys because of the smell. It was good to get back home at the end of the week.

Holes in the ground

I just got back from a trip down memory tunnel. I went with the scouts to Buckner's Cave today. I went a long time ago when I was a scout and then again with Seth one time. We had one turn back when he saw the entrance. The opening is pretty big, but then it turns off to the left into the "birth canal." To get in there you have to go head first into a hole-like tunnel and out into the canal. Then it's roughly 100 yards of crawling/rolling/scootching. Then it opens up so you can stand. The cave is too big to explore all in one day (we only stayed 3 - 4 hours). We decided to go towards the waterfall. I don't think I've ever gone that way before.

The way there was like a really narrow slot canyon. Parts of the way you could traverse above the stream, but there came a point where I had to crawl in the water. Then the stream goes down a hole that is at the top of another room. People have put in a rope to climb down. That was fun climbing down and up a waterfall. It was only about 15 - 17 feet.

The only bad part is knowing that you have to go back out the same way you came in. That wasn't so fun. But all in all an excellent trip.

Sorry I don't have any pictures, but it was really dusty and wet which equals muddy in places. It feels good to be clean again.