Ethan's Summer Adventures

A guest post...

Hello there everyone.  My name is Ethan and I am going to tell you all about my adventures in Scout camp and on High Adventure.  I will break down this post into 2 sections: Scout Camp and High Adventure.

Scout Camp: Scout Camp started on the 5th of July.  Right after Church we all met at Kroger to drive down to camp.  We were lucky because we only had to drive 5 minutes to get to the Camp.  On that day we did our swim checks and walked around camp to see where everything was. That night there was Opening campfire where everyone went down to the ampitheater and the staff did skits.  On Monday we woke up at 7:00 so we could get to Breakfast at 7:50.  After breakfast we had a break until classes started at 9:00.  My first Merit Badge of the day was Archaeology.  That was from 9:00-10:00.  In this class we talked about what Archaeology is.  After Archaeology I had swimming from 10:00-11:00.  The first day we had to swim 6 laps in the freezing water. First lap Freestyle, Second lap, Breast Stroke, Third Side Stroke, Fourth Back Stroke, and 5th and 6th whatever we wanted to do.  After swimming I had to hike 1/2 a mile down to First Aid from 11:00-12:00.  In this class we learned what to do in an emergency.  After that we had lunch at 12:05. After Lunch we had a 1 hour break until classes started back up.  My 4th class of the day was Archery from 2:00- 3:30.  In this class we learned about the different parts of the bow and arrow.  We made an arrow and got to shoot.  After Archery I had a half hour break until I had to go to Fishing.  However this break was mostly devoted to walking.  Since Archery is on the complete other side of the campgrounds.  I had to walk back to our campsite to get my fishing pole and then Hike to where the Fishing class is.  In this class we learned about different types of poles.  We got to fish and I caught a Bass.  That was my last class of the day.  We ate dinner at 5:50.  After dinner we had time to go blobbing and play Gaga ball. On Friday night we had closing campfire where awards were being passed out and the troops did skits.  So that was my week at Camp.  On Saturday we left to go home.

High-Adventure:  1 week after we got back from scout camp we went on our High-Adventure to South Manitou Island in Michigan.  After sacrament meeting on Sunday we drove several hours up to the campsite we would stay in that night.  Once we got there we started collecting fire wood for the fire we were making that night.  It turned out to be a really big fire.  On Monday we woke up at 7:00 so we could get to the dunes before a bunch of people started showing up.  The dunes were called Sleeping Bear Dunes.  We played around on them and hiked down to Lake Michigan.  After that we hiked back to the car so we could get to the ferry that took us to South Manitou Island.  The ferry was about 2 hours long.  Once we got to the Island we hiked down to our campsite and set up our tents. The next morning we woke up and hiked down to a really cool shipwreck that was just off the shoreline.  When we were finished there we walked through the cedar forest where there was really cool trees that were gigantic.  We then hiked to the dunes and walked through them for about an hour and then stopped to rest at the shoreline.  There was a really big hill there that went down to the shoreline and we tried to find the best rocks to roll down the hill and try to get it in the water.  When we were done there we hiked back to the campsite.  By then it was like 4:00 so we went down to the lake to go swimming.  The water was FREEZING. So we decided to make this really cool sandcastle protected by a bunch of walls and rocks.  So that's what we did for about 2 hours.  The next day we hiked down to the school house and then turned around to go to the dock to eat lunch and skip rocks. After about 2 hours we went down to the lighthouse tour. You could see back to the mainland at the top of it.  When we were done we hiked along the shoreline back to our campsite to get our swimming suits on and go finish our sandcastle from the night before. That night we collected a bunch of wood for a really big fire.  The next morning we hiked down to the dock so we could go back to the mainland on the ferry.  When we got back to the mainland we hiked to our car and started the LONG drive back home. That was how my High-Adventure went.