Camp out at Camp Meriwether

    Hello Everyone! Today I will tell you about my camping trip to Webelos Woods at Camp Meriwether. Camp Meriwether is in Cloverdale, OR 97112. We don't live nearby so we had to drive there for a long time. On the drive there I went with my friends. We played Magic the Gathering as well as solve rubik cubes. Overall, the drive there was not boring but actually very fun.

    When we finally, reached there, our group had to walk on a long trail to pirates. Well, here is what I thought: I thought it was going to be a fun walk to our wonderful camp place. But, that wasn't even it. It was raining.... HARD and we didn't actually know where we were going. All we knew was that our camp place was named pirates. Also just to make things worse, the luggage in our wheel barrow kept on falling out.

    Once we finally saw the sign pirates we were relieved and began to start unpacking. I chose a cabin with some of my friends. We took out our sleeping tarps, Blankets and sleeping bags. It took a while to get settled. After we were settled down, we played with our rubik cubes for a bit and then headed to Cracker Barrel.

     At Cracker Barrel, our parents were having a meeting with the coordinators about the exciting day that was ahead of us tomorrow. While that was happening, my friends and I drank hot chocolate, bought and ate chips as well as drinks. It was pretty fun. We also played tag and went outside. Outside, some of my friends were playing with the moths. One of my friends was really gentle and friendly with the moths. He held them on his hand and we enjoyed playing with them. That was pretty much it for our first day.

    On the second day, (the main day) we woke up at 7:00 am. After that I got dressed and we headed out for morning flag and breakfast. We saluted the american flag did the pledge and quickly got in line for breakfast. For breakfast, we ate cereal, pancakes and vegetarian patties. I got fueled for a big day ahead of us.

    Then we headed out for our activities. My favorite activities were Fire Building, Geo Caching, Archery and Monkey Bread. At the fire building station we learned the ways to build a fire and we lit one with a lots of newspaper. The newspaper pile in the fire was so big that the fire literately exploded in pops of ashes. I took a piece of paper that looked like charcoal paper. Fire building was my 3rd favorite out of the tops.

     The next activity that I liked was Geo Caching. At Geo Caching my friends and I were supposed to split up into groups to find 2 rocks, using a geocaching GPS. We found the firs rock successfully as well as the second one. When we finally started going back to our activity host place, we saw someone from another group spying on us in the bushes! We ran up the hill back to the host place and beat the second group by 5 minutes. We got tasty hot cider and a piece of candy. Geo caching was probably my second favorite activity.
     After that, another tasty activity was Monkey Bread. Now I may know what your thinking right now. "I've heard of banana bread and it has bananas in it. I have also heard of pumpkin bread/pie so does monkey bread have monkeys in it??". Well, the answer is no. Monkey bread is a flour dough soaked, and mixed in with sugar and cinnamon. Since we were at a camp out, there were no gas stoves, ovens or heating utilities so we had to use a fire. We cooked it in a metal cylinder that the boy scouts running the activity had. Once it was cooked, they kept them for later. We ate the previous group's monkey bread. It was really tasty. Monkey bread was maybe my least favorite activity out of my top 4, but I recommend you to try making it at home. 


    Lastly out of my top 4 was Archery. Before we got to shoot some arrows, we ate lunch. Lunch was provided and we go burritos, chips and a cookie. Some people got pickles but I didn't. :( Archery was fun. I have never done it before and it was really exciting. The closest shot I got was in the 2nd area from the center, called the bulls eye. After doing it my hand was really tired. Though I was tired, Archery was my FAVORITE one out of them all.

     Now, we walked back to our camp place, pirates. There, we played a few games of mana ramp Magic the Gathering (Meaning you can play lots of mana, built for specific decks.). It was pretty fun and it was quite time consuming since we were waiting for dinner. Also, one of our parents said that there was a special path towards the Pacific Ocean. We all got to see it long and wide with the horizon line. 

     After playing Magic, we wanted to build a fire. We found some kindling, fire wood and fuel builders for the fire. Since we were about to go to dinner we decided not to light it yet and saved it for later. Our den leader pointed out that he had also brought smores including: The cracker, Hershey Chocolate and Marshmallows.

    Now that it was finally time to got to dinner we went there. At dinner, I ate some Macaroni and Cheese, Salad and some rice and beans. We also planned to do a skit at the main campfire, not ours. We decided to do fly, a skit we have performed in the past for previous camp outs and activities. We signed up for it and practiced it a couple times. We also went outside, played some tag and my friend was also playing with he moths and holding them. The Moths really adored him. Then we headed to the campfire bowl. At the campfire bowl, there was a campfire. We did skits and songs with lots of fun. Sadly, for some reason our skit never got called to perform on the stage.

      Then, we got pumped up for building our own fire. We went back to pirates and began to try lighting the fire. We tried using flint and steel lighters in our pocket knife and we got really close but not good enough. Our den leader also went to get the Smores so we didn't have any matches. When he finally came back (the parking lot was very far away), we lit a match from his match packets and started the fire. It was really nice. We told jokes, riddles and scary stories. The parents then told us to go to sleep and they we continue the fire for a bit more time.

    On our last day, my dad and I thought it would be good to leave in the morning since all we would be doing is going to breakfast and then leaving. Also, a lot of my friends were leaving too. We packed up, loaded it in the car as my dad had brought the car near the entrance of the camp place in the morning and headed to leave. I did a quick leave no trace routine and picked up a little of junk because there wasn't much left. We said good bye and left.

    Overall, my camp out to Camp Meriwether was tiring but VERY FUN! I recommend the place as there is a lake where you can boat. I really liked my favorite activities: Fire Building, Geo Caching, Archery and Monkey Bread. I hope to go to more camps in the future.

 

    Rishab Jain signing out! ~=[,,_,,]:3