Come Hell or high water (Be careful what you wish for...)

[Icon134 0]

...you might just get it... When I was in High School I was a boyscout (I didn't get my Eagle for personal reasons...) but I was very active in the scouting organizations. One of the activities I was involved in was Junior Leader Training (JLT) I was on the Staff for several years in HS... there's nothing like standing up in front of kids your own age teaching things like "Cooking without Utensils" to effectively eliminate any fear you might have at speaking in front of a groups...
Part of the training involves the patrols (groups of about 8-10 kids) to hike to a predetermined remote location (which they must find using orentiation techniques) and camp out with only a few items available to them generally not including tents... so for what its worth they are camping under the stars.

Before they leave the Staff like to poke fun that it is likely to Rain/storm/etc... by singing a jingle (to the tune of "Let It Snow") and poor buckets of water onto at "weather rock" which tells the weather by the conditions around the rock all in good fun or sooo you might think... (The staff generally keeps a close eye on the patrols throughout the night... and even though we get the evening off, Steak & Potatoes for dinner, we were up late that night 0100-0200 to Clean the Staff Kitchen cause the Scoutmasters were not happy... and so... we all got to bed late that night... and we didn't get much sleep... cause not an hour after I laid down then I was awakened by a very close and very loud lightening strike (and the subsiquent thunder that followed...) not to mention the stream of water that was raining along the ridge poll of my tent to boot when I finally decided the storm wasn't worth trying to sleep through I discovered the floor of my tent, reads ground, was covered in about 3" of water (fortunately I was on a cot... ) At this point I came into the kind of clarity that only comes from running around in a severe storm, where I could probably have gotten killed and probably shouldn't have been in a tent (with neat little lightening rods, aka tent poles, at each end.)

I also figured it might be a good idea to check on my scouts (I was a patrol counslor for one of the patrols... so I had a vested interest in their well being...)

needless to say I made a made dash in the rain to find that fortunately for us everyone had made it safely (though extremely wet and probably cold) to the Campgrounds dining hall where we spent most of the rest of the afternoon... after making Pancakes with makeshift syrup using cain sugar and fruit boiled to thicken it to the appropiate "consistency" and Frankly those were some damn good pancakes

Scott

Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...