Day 3: Norming and Bonding

Day 3 was Wednesday.  We woke up bright and early, had breakfast and did the flag ceremony.  We had a very nice flag ceremony and had a good discussion about a painting by Norman Rockwell.  I can't remember the name of the painting but it showed an Eagle Scout saluting.  He was the model for what scouts were supposed to be like back in the 40's.  The discussion led on to talking about what older scout in each of the boys' life had the most influence on them and best exemplified what a boy scout was supposed to be.  Kelton Kearsley left on his mission a week ago (thats how far behind I am in writing this).  I believe it was Carson or Chase who pointed to Kaleb and said, " Your brother is the best scout I've ever seen".  Now that we had a person whom all the boys knew and could relate to, the realization hit them and the seed was planted in their minds how they should be.  I would echo that Kelton is a dang fine scout as well as many others in our ward and the valley.  If everybody chose to live the Scout Law and Oath, I don't think we would have the problems we have today.  I think when they swear in a President of the United States, they should have to swear to live by the Scout Oath and Law.

The day progressed on and we worked on our merit badges. We played in the water on the boats and the tubes.  Some of the boys were braver and were able to handle the tube, but mostly because I slowed it way down.  We were sitting out there in the water just talking and it was dang hot.  I started bantering the boys to jump in, because they were getting a little smelly.  Fortunately, most of them did.  I finally decided to jump in and like a dummy forgot to take off my super expensive sunglasses.  I hit the water, (and it does this to me every time), and felt all the wind leave my body from the cold.  Its like my lungs turn into a plastic bag with a vacuum sucking them inside out.  I'm not sure why it does that but I think its stupid.  And then I look like a gulping guppy with a broken back stuttering how cold it is.  The good thing to this story is that despite all my thrashing, the sunglasses stayed on my face.  I lumbered onto the back of the boat and flopped like a turtle on its back for a minute or so.  Dang, I'm getting old.  At least I was cooled down and felt a heck of a lot cleaner.

At some point, me and Aaron were in the same boat with a bunch of boys.  I think we were filling up the water jugs at the Calamity entrance and were headed back to camp.  We saw a couple of huge planes swooping down and skimming off the surface of the water.  We determined they were planes gathering water for the fire that had recently started in Bondurant.   One would come in first and swoop down and skim on the surface for quite aways and then the second one would swoop down right after it.  They would then lift off and fly into the distance.  About a half hour later they would return again.  We decided to bust over to where they were scooping water so we could get a closer look.  I drove the boat up around the corner of the lake from our camp and we found a good spot to wait.  Pretty soon they came again and I videoed it with my phone.  I think the boys thought it was cool.

That night after dinner we had skits and a campfire.  It was a lot of fun and the boys came up with some super funny things.  We played the game called Zulu toss, which is where you have a circle of between 5 and 6 boys.  They have to toss the balls to another boy while I kept feeding them more balls into the circle.  They had to see how many balls we could keep going in the air without dropping them.  We had two groups and I think each of them got up to 5 balls in the air at once.  It was pretty funny.

Bedtime came and Andrew tried to play Taps but alas his lips were done for.  I went to my bed thankful for the time I got to spend with these young men.  The boys are coming together better as a troop hence the title. It certainly makes one closer to God while doing a trip like this.

Sunrise on the lake

Kiowa and Carson having an early morning staring contest.

Sleepy heads

Looks peaceful.  I had gotten up before everybody else to take these photos.

Might be a buck

More sunrise

Andrew enjoys the quiet stillness before the day starts.

The Pelican track is almost as big as my hand.  Is this a wolf track?  At first I thought not but as the week wore on I kept seeing new tracks.  We had not seen any stray dogs around.  The animal is awfully heavy as you can tell by how deep the track is compared to the pelican track.  Later when I saw these tracks on top of a boys footprint I decided that yes this is a wolf track.  If it was a dog, I think the dumb thing would have showed itself.

There's a bald eagle clear up in the dead tree on the left.

This morning Kaleb came back from a doctor's appointment and brought some aloe vera.  The boys were very grateful and immediately started applying it.  I think they learned a really valuable lesson about sunscreen.  The next day when Kaleb woke up he had huge blisters on his shoulders the size of an apricot.  Most of the boys got super red and burned but I think Kaleb wins the trophy for the biggest blisters.

Sorry to use you as a kleenex Kiowa

Does Kiowa know there's a huge slimy thing on his neck?

Zulu toss younger boys.  Brad came up this day to stay the rest of the week.

Zulu toss older boys

Getting ready for the skits and campfire

The motorcycle gang skit where they keep beating up the same guy

planning on how they are going to make fun of the leaders

Waiting for the next skit

The invisible bench skit.  They also did the Peanut skit which I don't think I got a photo of.  The poor kid who was the volunteer.  I think it was Tucker but I am not sure.  I wish I had taken a photo of every skit but I did not.