Raven Scouts

Part I - the Camping Trip:      Early Saturday morning we started driving to South Mountain State Park for a camping trip.  We took two cars with Bobcat and I in one.  On the way there, we talked about a lot of things... I told her about my new job, we talked about how we'd survive if society collapsed.  At one point I mentioned our failed attempts to get a puppy recently.  Bobcat commented that it was probably a good thing since it opened us up for something serendipitous to happen.  This way a pet could just walk into our life when the time was right.  She really said that... also, this is called foreshadowing. We hiked into South Mountain State Park on a Saturday around noon.  Wolf, Bobcat, myself, Badger, Dragon and a new Raven Scout... he hasn't picked a name yet so I'll call him Hawk until he decides. This was Badger's first camping trip and the weather was perfect. The time passed pretty quickly as we hiked up the mountain...

Although Bobcat couldn't join us, Wolf and I set out to complete some of the requirements for the camping merit badge.  Counting this as our second overnight camp, we hiked 7.5 miles to a campsite which was over 2,000 ft above sea level.  This took care of all of the ancillary camping requirements, although we still had 18 overnight camps to go to earn the badge. A bit more prepared than last time, we came equipped with a hatchet for cutting firewood, and a shiny new tent.  Our dog also seemed more prepared somehow, although she had no interest in any of our merit badge discussions. To be perfectly honest, she seemed rather ambivalent to the whole quest for knowledge in general.  She enjoys a good camping adventure, but has no interest in anything that doesn't involve treats or snuggles. A disappointment as dogs go, when it comes to intellectual pursuits. After setting up camp, we had time to relax and enjoy our surroundings. ...

We got home and I immediately began to map out our options with Wolf and Bobcat.  All the merit badge requirements can be found here: http://www.scouting.org/ with handy-dandy pdfs breaking down what to do.  This, combined with the Boy Scout handbook and Internet search engines were all the resources we needed to get started.  We wanted to start out by looking into the Eagle Scout requirements... from a Merit Badge stand point, Eagle Scouts have to earn the following 13 badges: Camping Cooking One of: Swimming, Hiking or Cycling (though we planned to earn them all) Citizenship in the Community Citizenship in the Nation Citizenship in the World Communication One of: Lifesaving or Emergency Preparedness One of: Environmental Science or Sustainability Family Life First Aid Personal Fitness Personal Management In addition, an Eagle Scout would need to earn 8 elective merit badges.  The merit badges that peaked our interest either individually or a...

Bobcat, Wolf and Mouse were the names we gave each other on our first camping trip... We hiked around 6 miles to our site with packs that were far far too full... we had enough food for a five day trip, even though we would only be there for one night.  In our eagerness, we also chose a trail that was categorized as "strenuous" and which ended up being a significant amount of uphill for three out-of-practice campers.  Along the way, we adjusted who was carrying what, changed from pants to shorts, and generally figured things out as we went.  For all of us, it had been years since our last trip into the woods... but this trip sparked a pretty amazing journey for the three of us. It all really started because we decided to engage in a survival exercise.  Imagining that we were in some sort of post-apocalyptic end world scenario (one where we could survive in the woods, albeit with risk - e.g. not a nuclear fallout situation), we started talking about the sk...