Raven Scouts

It's been quite some time since we last posted but life has been a bit crazy - a new job, dealing with a new cat, getting into birding and possibly most importantly, learning to kayak.  The general consensus with kayaking is that you can jump right in and start paddling.  By and large, this is true.  But what if you want to up the ante a bit? We'll get to that shortly. Bobcat got a head-start when it comes to the Raven Scout kayaking adventures.  Not only did she go out on the water ahead of the rest of us, she ended up purchasing a kayak!  For Wolf and I, we started out with some rentals at a local reservoir with Bobcat showing us the ropes.  Our first day out, we learned some basic paddling techniques and got a major upper-body workout.  We also stumbled upon this amazing tree! After a few times out, Wolf and I decided it was time to get our own kayaks and we went with a sit-on-top model (no whitewater rapids in our future).  The mode...

Mouse: Today I was fortunate enough to go on a 7 mile hike as a component of our hiking merit badge.  Bobcat and Wolf accompanied and we trekked into the Eno River State Park on a beautiful Sunday morning with a cool breeze and a light rain.  We decided to enter at the Pump Station Trail-head and connect with the Laurel Bluff Trail before looping back the way we came. Wolf: Side note: the Laurel Buffs Trail is kinda confusing, because it actually is three distinct parts, and it's all part of the Mountains to Sea trail. That's fairly unimportant, but it's mostly cool because we got to spend some time on the MST today, which makes me really happy. We hope to hike the full thing when it's finished as footpaths, someday (of note, over the last ten years or so, each year about 15 miles of footpaths have been added to the path; they have almost 700 miles of footpaths now, with an additional 500 of connecting roads...so it will take some time...). Additional side note: the b...

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...