Fort Richardson Campout

Our troop went camping this past weekend, so here is a summary of our campout:

Place: Fort Richardson State Park
Attendance: 5 youth, 3 adults
Activity: Scout skills - Woods tools, fire building; 6 mile hike (with a milkshake at the 4.8 mile mark :-)

Notes: Great campout. The weather was wonderful; cool nights and warm days. This time of year is my favorite time to camp in Texas.

Since it is deer season, we were not able to camp in the primitive camp sites. The park ranger offered us the overflow camping area. Had we made reservations earlier, we might have been able to plan a different location, but since we were on a short time line, we decided to take the overflow campsites. A more remote camp site would have been nicer, but we still had a good time.

In the morning we did the scout skills, then toured the fort. All of the buildings were open, and there are more displays than were here last time I visited. We started our hike from the fort, and ate lunch at along the trail.

The hike this time went much better than the last campout. The trail was easy to find, and well maintained. The troop made much better time completing the hike.

We also used the caterpillar method of hiking which allows the scouts to stay closer together, take fewer rest breaks, and cover more ground in less time. The way the caterpillar works is we all get into a line, and start hiking. The person at the front of the line takes 50 paces (counts how many times his right foot hits the ground), then steps to the side of the trail. The next person in line then starts counting 50 paces. The one who stopped, gets to rest until the last person in line passes him, then he joins the line at the end. This process is repeated until we reach our destination. Once they get the hang of it, it works very well. The key is keeping the group in the same order.

After our hike we came back to camp and prepared dinner. The boys cooked hot dogs over the fire, and they all thought they were the best hot dogs they had ever tasted. Maybe cooking them for themselves made the difference.

I did get to use my "Your Best Guide" chaplains minute on Sunday morning, so my prep work was not wasted.

I am happy with our new troop. The boys seem much closer than the boys in our old troop. I'm sure that size has something to do with it. Also, having a common bond of homeschooling may help. There are things that I miss about the old troop (it really is a good troop), but I'm confident that we made the right decision. Now maybe there will be another really good troop in Flower Mound.