A Need to Create

It's a big day in our household. Ethan came back from a week long stay at Boy Scout camp and Ellie raced in the Colorado State Time Trial Championships.

Ethan has way more fun at camp than he had expected. He went down focused on earning three of the badges he needed in order to get close to being able to work on his Eagle.

Ethan was part of Super Troop since his own troop was not attending camp that week. Super Troop is made up of various boys from different troops. The boys stayed in canvas tents, most of them sleeping on cots. Ethan did not have a cot, which was only a problem a during the few nights that it rained. The end of his sleeping bag got a little wet during those nights.

After getting set up at Camp Vasquez, he was elected as the troop leader by his peers. Period 1 he did Environmental Science. Period 2, just down the mountain, was Communications at Camp Hollywood (the building with the computers and technical equipment). Then they had a lunch break. Period 3, Emergency Preparedness, was back up at Camp Vasquez. There was really not a lot of down time, but the boys still found time to hang out, teach each other card games (like Blind Man's Bluff.)

The theme this year is a western theme which means that there were fake gold nuggets that the boys earned, found and traded for stuff. One they had a big party with the everyone at camp. At one point, a troop leader, John, pretended to be a bandit. He came into the party, shooting his gun and dressed from head to toe in black. He was yellin' that Sheriff Kelse had stolen his town, his people and his gold. They lock hands and got into a finger duel with the bandit flipping Sheriff Kelse over. The sheriff won and put the bandit in stockades where the boys could throw stuff at him. The camp staff had erected an entire ghost town for the occasion. During outpost on Thursday night a bunch of the boys set up an economy. Some of them formed companies and went out to prospect for interesting rocks. Some boys prospectors, some where miners and a few were bosses. They included Ethan, Ryan and Andrew. They had a pretty good business going. The camp staff found out what was happening and told the boys that it was against "Leave No Trace" to do such things, so they could not take any away. A few boys tried to set up a black market. At one point the workers revolted and Ethan had to make an official statement on behave of the other bosses that there would not be any black market activities. On Friday night Ethan learned how to make a money's fist knot from a staff member. There was also a flag ceremony where Ethan was awarded the Baden Powell Award for being one of the best scouts who models living by the Scout law. He also received a Ranch Award. The staff liked Ethan so much that they tried to convince him to come back down and be on camp staff. Ethan was very pleased with the offer, but could not accept the offer as he starts work with Jeffco Open Space on Monday. On Saturday Ethan came home happy, but tired and hungry. There had been a black bear about 40 feet from his troop tent area. He stayed up much of the night to make sure the bear did not attack. He had been alerted that the bear was in camp. He was looking out and could not see it in the dark of the night. Suddenly a camp truck drove up and started honking. It turns out that the staff was chasing it out of camp and back into the wilderness. It was a lot of excitement!

Ellie had a great time racing. She had a very competitive group this year with several girls who left from the race to go to Nationals in Bend, OR. She placed 5th, but was within less than a minute than the person who came in third.