Camping At Beaver Dam State Park
Our latest camping event involved a quick weekend trip to Beaver Dam State Park. The weather changed nearly every hour or two and the fishing wasn’t great, but we had lots of fun and our Scouts prepared some great meals. Another successful camping weekend!
Setting Up Camp
As with most camping trips, one of the first tasks for our Scouts is to set up camp. We were able to park the trailer near the campsite, so that saved us from having to manually haul our gear to the campsite by foot. However, we still needed to set up our tests for the weekend.
I’m proud to say that we rarely have any issues with the campsite setup process. Both our veteran and new Scouts do a great job at setting up their tents. It definitely helped that we were able to leave a little earlier than normal an didn’t have that far to go. This meant that we could set up our tents in the daylight!
Campfire Challenge
This has become somewhat of a tradition…at least in the past year or so. Whenever we have a campout, at some point during the event we challenge the Scouts to test their fire-starting skills. Using only their flint and steel (and whatever other fire-starting aids they brought), we see who can get a campfire started. It’s not necessarily a race to see who can do it first. It’s simply a challenge to see who can make it happen.
This isn’t solely a test of their fire-starting technique. It’s also check to see how well they follow the BSA motto…
Be Prepared
While packing their camping gear, did they remember to bring along something to help start a campfire? Maybe it’s some dried trimmings from around the house or a little lint from the clothes dryer. There are many options, and it doesn’t take much, but it’s oh so helpful.
The adult leaders decided to join in on the challenge. Luckily, we made a good impression and got our fires started in little time.
Breakfast From Scratch
Our Scouts have shown that they really enjoy trying something new when it comes to meals at our camping events. We decided to take advantage of this by once again pushing them a little further.
Aside from always adding bacon to the menu (duh), biscuits and gravy are a popular item, and it ended up on on this weekend’s list for Saturday’s breakfast. I decided to challenge the Scouts and have them make the biscuits from scratch…something that most people don’t do at home, not to mention on a camping trip.
Were the Scouts up to the challenge? Absolutely!
They questioned the idea at first. However, once they realized it wasn’t that difficult, they dove right into it. In no time at all, we had homemade biscuits and gravy to go with our “Mountain Man” dutch oven breakfast.
Needless to say, no one went hungry. I even heard 2 separate Scouts say that they loved the biscuits. I think we may have found a new recurring item for our camping menu!
Fishing and Hiking? – Meh
For some of our camping trips, we plan a lot of activities for our Scouts to do. This was not one of them. We knew we’d be camping next to a lake. We decided to make this a simple, relaxing weekend where we could fish, hike, and just relax by the campfire.
Unfortunately, the weather didn’t quite cooperate with our plans.
The morning was pretty rainy. Luckily, we didn’t experience any downpours, and the rain didn’t start until AFTER we had finished cleaning up breakfast. (Phew!) Shortly afterwards, however, it pretty much rained until early afternoon.
Many of our Scouts (and others visiting the park) didn’t let the rain keep them from trying to catch some fish. In the pictures above, one of our Scouts is showing some of the other how to tie a lure to the end of their line.
Teaching the Scouts how to tie lures to their lines
The rain also left many of the hiking trailers pretty muddy. Water actually covered many areas of the trails. The Scouts had already walked quite a bit around the lake and around the lake while fishing. So, we decided against taking an organized hiking trip and instead relaxed around the campfire. Eventually, the rain cleared, and it turned into a beautiful afternoon.
Dinner Time!
For Dinner on Saturday, the Scouts once again chose something that we hadn’t done before (as far as I know)…Jambalaya. It took a little prep work, but in the end it was definitely worth it. They even threw in some mushrooms that one of the adult leaders had collected earlier in the day.
Dessert Cook-off
Since the guys seem to enjoy cooking so much, we decided to try something new. Earlier at a troop meeting, we decided to have a small challenge…a Dutch Oven Dessert Cook-off! Each patrol was to pick a dessert to make, and the adults would be the judges and determine who was the winner. (The Scouts were making us desserts, so in the end, WE were the big winners!)
We currently have 2 patrols, and each patrol’s dessert was excellent!
One dessert was “Redneck Finger Cake”. It started with chocolate cake, and included items such as chocolate chips, pudding, caramel, creme cheese, cool whip, and other items, all topped with crumbled Butterfingers candy bars. Yes, it was as good as it sounds.
The other patrol made “Gooey Double-Chocolate Caramel Cake”. The phrase used multiple times to describe the end result was “chocolate explosion”. As with the Redneck Finger Cake, it too was excellent.
In the end, we had to choose a winner, and the Redneck Finger Cake won by a narrow margin.
As If That Wasn’t Enough…
Our older-Scout patrol (being overly ambitious) decided to make a second dessert, which was Dutch Oven Monkey Bread. It likely would have turned out great. However, once again, the weather didn’t cooperate. While the Scouts were trying to make this meal, the wind gusts came out of nowhere, and it took all we could just to keep things from blowing away. The wind distracted us so much while cleaning up that we sort of lost track of time and left the dessert on the fire a little too long. It wasn’t bad, but we definitely over-cooked it. That said, it wasn’t all bad. We didn’t have a chance to enjoy that dessert, but we were all stuffed from everything else that evening.
Speaking of the weather… A few days prior to the campout, the weather was in the 70s. On Saturday night once the wind (finally) stopped, the temp dropped almost to the freezing point! “Most” of the Scouts had prepared for the camping trip. It’s fair to say, however, that none of us completely planned for such cool temps. We definitely put the wool blankets in the Scout trailer to good use that night!
Another Successful Camping Trip
You never know exactly how trips like this will turn out, especially when the plans are somewhat loose as they were for this trip. In the end, however, it seemed to turn out great. We had to make adjustments along the way, but it all worked out. Our Scouts showed that they were more than capable of adapting to the situations presented to them and make the most of it. Success!
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