Camporee Rained Out

Curtis and I began the weekend Friday night with a trip with the troop out to Louisburg, KS for Camporee. For those of you not familiar with it, Camporee is supposed to be a gathering of area Boy Scout troops with the goal of some friendly competition and sharing information -- it also seems to have become a recruiting tool as most troops invite Webelos out to camp with them to see what it will be like to join Boy Scouts.

Anyway, the night started out alright but turned ugly around 4 this morning. I knew we were in for it when I was awakened by the sides of my tent hitting me in the face. The winds got worse and our troops dining fly caught the wind, up-ended and would have hit a couple tents, including mine, had one of the adults not been out watching the lightning; he caught the fly and called for help. All of the adults and most of the boys scrambled out of their sleeping bags to get things set back up and roped down -- all in the middle of a pretty intense thunderstorm.

By the time our site was put back in order it was 6:30 and we fixed a lot of coffee and enjoyed some REALLY good biscuits and gravy. We put some other canvas tarps up on the sides of the dining fly and a few of us had to stand there with our backs to the tarps holding them out away from the cooking equipment. The rain didn't let up and the winds would come and go. This may not be a very clear shot -- but you'll get an idea of what we were dealing with looking at another troops dining fly up in the trees.


Shortly after I took this picture our dining fly was pulled up and went flying for the second, and last time. With lightning striking in the campgrounds, we called it quits. Be prepared -- but don't be foolish...