A Scout should always be prepared

In Scouts I was always taught that a Scout should always be prepared. Yesterday as a troop we went to Crystal Hot Springs. I spent a month getting the permission slips taken care of, ensuring I had every one's Class 1 Medical forms, camp site reserved and Tour Permit filed with the Council. I thought I was ahead of the game and this would be the best camp out ever. Well that was what I was picturing in my mind. What I had left to do was the food prep and packing. In my mind that was the easiest part of this camp out.

Kristi insisted that she go shopping with me for the food. If it was not for her and her suggestions at the store, my Scouts would have eaten Hot Dogs and Pop for dinner and breakfast. I know that I was taught different when I was a Scout, at least I could have cooked garbage (Frito's, beans and peppers). Kristi helped me prepare a well balanced set of meals for the camp out. We were to have Dutch Oven Parmesan Chicken with a salad and Dutch Oven Apple Cobbler for dessert. For breakfast I bought oatmeal and a lot of fruit (of course I disregarded Kristi's advice to have scrambled cheesey eggs too). Any Nutritionist would agree that these were the perfect meals for growing boys.

By this time I was envisioning in my mind the boys saying, "Brother Koger took us on the best camp out we ever went on; and he feed us like Kings!" I think I spent too much time reveling in my future glory rather than planning for the "Perfect Storm" that was soon to happen.

In my haste to prepare the night before, I thought I could pack and get all the small details taken care of when I got home from work. Well, I was delayed and I was also was stuck in traffic for a while. When I got home all I could do was change out of my work shirt and put on my Scout shirt. With late start we did not get to the campsite until after 7pm. By then it was dark. With haste we put up our tents and started on dinner. I sent the boys off to swim while I finished with dinner (and the only reason dinner even got started in the first place was one of my really prepared scouts had the can opener and matches that I forgot). Well, I was not ready to deal with all the snow and cold that would hinder the cooking of the dinner. It took almost 2/3 a bag of charcoals to get the dinner somewhat warm. With all the time it took get all the charcoals hot, the winter weather had greater force on the outcome of the dinner. Only one of the chicken dinners was fully cooked, and the Cobbler was still pretty much still goo at 11:30pm. With all the energy it took to get dinner to luke warm, I was so tired. I was ready for bed. Again, I did not prepare for the cold night a head. I was sooo cold all night long. I even put my mittens on my feet to keep them somewhat from freezing.

I thought breakfast would be my saving grace of the camp out. Our neighboring campers offered my Scouts some of their Mountain Man breakfast. The boys took one look at the oatmeal and fruit, and set them down and took the campers up on their offer.

All I had to do was jump start my car and get the car out of the hole I drove it into (that is a whole different story. Lets just say it did not help the trip.)

Needless to say, I was never prepared and I felt awful the whole time. I want to be the Scoutmaster that you see in the Norman Rockwell posters. I know there is always room to improve, but I never envisioned I would need to prepare so much room.