Ben's October Campout

Last weekend, I went on a Boy Scout Camp out at the St. Croix River. There were 12 boys and 5 adult chaperones. Some of the campers slept in a building, but I personally slept in a tent - it was cold, but my sleeping bag kept me warm.

Here is a picture of me and Luke, eating some instant oatmeal and drinking hot chocolate. I had apples & cinnamon flavored oatmeal, but I'm not sure what flavor Luke had. This was the first time I had oatmeal that I liked it.
Here, I am learning from Mr. Waters how to use a camp stove. We were working on earning our Cooking Merit Badges. Mr. Waters showed us how to refuel and operate different types of camp stoves. Before the camp out, we had to plan all our meals, do the grocery shopping, and then at the camp out we had to do all of our own cooking. We also learned about healthy eating, and different diseases associated with food that you can catch (not all of them are 'in' the food.)

In this picture, I am trying to eat some "yummy" stuff (it actually was quite burnt.) It was supposed to be foil cooked potato stew but the people wrapping up the packets did it pretty flimsily and so we couldn't flip it in the fire. One side got barely cooked and one side got very, very burnt. The adults felt sorry for us and shared their dinner with us. I learned not to let someone else cook my supper for me! (except my Mom or Dad!)

Here we are around the camp fire, using "Pudgy Pie Makers" (my mom calls them Hobo Pie makers) to make grilled cheese sandwiches, and mini apple pies. I made a min apple pie, but then someone bumped into me and all the apple filling slipped out, so I threw the rest away. What I got to eat was actually pretty good! (I usually don't like apple pie very much)
On Saturday afternoon, we went hiking and climbing. This is me, climbing through a large hole in a rock outcrop. At first I thought it was a deep cave, but it came out on the other side, about 2 or 3 yards long.
This one shows me and two other campers climbing below a large rock, on the edge of a cliff. The drop was about 6 feet, then there was a gentle hill after that. It was kind of freaky, but I liked it a lot!
When we began to descend the bluffs, there were two ways. You could either climb down a rocky part, or you could slide down a dry creek bed. I chose to slide down!

In this last picture, I am half-way down the slope waving to Mr. Behnen. In the background, you can see Chris and another kid climbing down. I got very thirsty and drank a lot of water when we got back. We had a great time!