After the boy’s soccer game yesterday afternoon, we made the trek up to a Scout cabin for a Pack sponsored overnight campout. The facility we stay at is pretty good, as these things go. The cabin is an open room, about 20×40 with bathroom facilities (no showers) and a reasonable kitchen. Outdoors, the land the cabin sits on was donated to the Scouts and has a couple of nice hiking trails and a couple of campground spots nearby. It sits atop a hill, so the view is pretty good on Fall evenings. Our pack typically uses the facility because it’s low cost, high value and fun. Yesterday was no exception.
The boy and I didn’t get up there in time for the hiking, but he got a chance to participate in the various games of tag, manhunt, hide-and-seek and what not with all of his buds. Dinner was a pot-luck format with a campfire that followed. Once the lights out time started approaching, we herded the boys up into the cabin for board games and getting ready for bed.
Lights out is a rather misleading term in all but the most literal sense. They did in fact go out at 10, but the kids were by no means ready to go to sleep. We had to suffer through a period of them getting the remainder of their sillies out of them. Air mattresses were squeaking, flashlight were going on and off, fake snoring was prevalent, loudly blurted “I can’t sleep because there’s too much noise” were prevalent and, generally, other sorts of antics that occur at just about any slumber party.
The most ironic part is that all of the boys did fall asleep eventually, with a cacophony of half-snores, deep breathing, and restless-turners serving as testimony. Many of us parents, including myself, weren’t so lucky. The dawn didn’t exactly come quickly, but it did arrive and we were awake to watch it do so. The kids woke up rested and raring to go. In the meantime, the parents were hooking up to coffee feeds in the kitchen.
The nicest moment, for myself, happened on the ride home. One of the boy’s fellow Wolf Scouts had run into a pricker bush during the games yesterday. Poor kid caught his eyelid on a thorn and was, understandably, none to pleased with the circumstances. The boy, on his own, chose to walk with his friend back to the cabin (and away from the still ongoing games) to keep him company and make sure that he was OK (he was). The boy was telling me that on the ride home and said “‘Cause that’s what Scouts do, right Dad? They help each other.”
Well, that’s what they tell me. But it’s still nice to see it put to practice every now and again. Pleasant surprises like that make the long nights more bearable.