Category: Personal

After a quick stop in the town outside the national park for some souvenir hunting and lunch, we headed into the Denali National Park.  Denali consists of over six million acres, and there is just one road through it, so we took our time driving to the Teklaneeka campground deep inside the park, taking in the sights along the way.  The RV did reasonably well on the gravel road.

Before getting on the long road to the campground, however, we took a short hike around Horseshoe lake.  We didn’t see any animals, but we saw a beaver dam that was probably 40 yards long.  No beaver.

The next morning we got up very early to catch the first bus toward Wonder Lake.  Our thought was that we would see more wildlife on the early bus.  We did.  It started with a pair of moose hanging out near the bus stop.  You can see one behind Tommy’s shoulder in this picture.

Soon after departing we encountered another one.

It was a four hour bus ride from our campground to Wonder Lake.  Along the way we saw some beautiful scenery and many animals.  The only one of the “big” animals we didn’t see was a wolf.

We encountered two golden eagles perched on rocks above the road.  This picture is one of them flying away.

Two German girls were on the bus, taking pictures of their own moose at various stops.

The bus driver, Darlene was quite good.  She stopped frequently and had lots of good stories.

This picture was taken at a short rest stop along the way.

We saw more moose on this four-hour bus ride than we did during our entire visit to Maine.

Considering its name, Wonder Lake was a bit anti-climactic.  From here, however, we took a five mile hike out and back along the McKinley Bar trail, which took us through rocks and woods to the river.

On the way back we encountered three rock ptarmigans, the Alaska state bird.  They looked a lot like pheasant or grouse to me.  They eventually flew off as we continued our hike.

Another caribou near the bus on our ride back toward camp.

The rest stops along the bus route looked like this.  The doors were probably three inches thick and heavily reinforced to keep out bears and other animals.  All were very clean!

That night we played rummy and watched a little television before bed.

The next morning we left the campground and headed southward.  On our way up, we had tried to get a flight up to a glacier on the slopes of Mt. McKinley.  This morning the clouds cleared, and it looked like we might be able to fly, so we packed up and headed back to Talkeetna.  During a portion of the drive, the kids worked on their Summer reading.

Then we turned a bend in the road and there was Mt. McKinley.  They say only 31% of visitors to Alaska get to see the whole mountain.  It was much more impressive than this picture conveys.  Mt. McKinley is the tallest mountain in the Western Hemisphere, at 20k+ feet of elevation.

We stopped several times along the way to get different and better shots of the mountain.  The sky got better and better all day.

We were lucky to get a 1430 flight up the mountain for a glacier landing from Talkeetna.  Each of us donned a pair of protective over boots so that we could walk around in the snow on the glacier.

There were six of us plus the pilot on this DeHaviland Beaver.

The flight was smooth, and along the way the pilot had a lot of interesting things to point out.  I got to sit up front and take lots of pictures.

The glaciers on Mt. McKinley are growing at an average rate of about three feet a day.  The guide said that the glaciers act like frozen rivers.  They have falls, currents, and even cataracts.

Here you can see where ice has formed, cracked, and fallen.  These falls grow at a rate of six or more feet per day and push the glacier down the valley.

Landing on the glacier was interesting.  The surface was slushy, so the plane slid around on its skis until it came to a stop.  The temperature was about 30 degrees, but it felt much warmer due to the sun and the heat radiating off the snow and rocks.

We spent about 25 minutes on the glacier before returning to Talkeetna.  The guide told us that glaciologists come up here to study the McKinley glaciers quite frequently.  They have taken deep core samples.  Air is trapped in the glaciers, so core samples reveal things about the air 10s of thousands of years ago.  For the global warming crowd, the scientists who study these glaciers say that the percent of greenhouse gasses in the air 10,000 years ago is about the same as it is today.

In this picture you can see how the ice cracks as it flows downhill.  Also note the light blue patches.  The color of the glacial ice is blue.  It doesn’t show in most of the pictures, but in person you could see the slightly blue color.  The light blue patches in this picture are deep fissures or crevasses that have filled with snow.  When the sun is out, the top layers melt a little and turn into these light blue lakes or ponds.

After returning to Talkeetna, we played in the elementary school playground for a few minutes and then headed South to Houston to stop for the night before continuing south past Anchorage.

 

Day three involved a drive from Anchorage to Talkeetna with ad hoc stops along the way.  Candy has a great book that has everything in Alaska by milepost.  We made an impromptu stop at a pullout for Thunderbird Falls.  After a mile hike over mostly easy trail, we reached the falls.

They were nice, but not the most spectacular falls we’ve ever seen.  Still, it was a nice hike and a great way to break up the drive.

Farther up the road, in Wasilla (Sarah Palin’s home town), we visited the Iditarod Race Headquarters.  The race actually begins in Anchorage, but the headquarters is in Wasilla.

Inside the gift store they showed an eighteen-minute movie and had some very interesting race memorabilia.  I was hoping that the movie would talk more about the history of the race.  It was in fact more like a racing documentary, discussing the mushers competing in the 2012 race.  In anchorage we learned that this race commemorates an historical event.  One winter there was an outbreak of diphtheria in Nome and the only way to get the serum from Anchorage was by dogsled.  Sometime in the the 60’s or 70’s someone came up with the idea or resurrecting the event for sport, not unlike running a marathon, which was initially to commemorate the end of the battle of Marathon.

Still farther up the road toward Talkeetna we stopped at Miller’s roadside cafe.  They were reputed to have great burgers and ice cream.  They did.  This was a neat place: combination general store, ice cream parlor, burger joint, coffee house, and post office.  In fact the Postmaster is the person who cooked our food.

We topped off our food with ice cream and got back on the road.

Eventually we arrived in Talkeetna.  The town, which has a year-round population of ~800, was originally a transit point where goods were take off barges and the hauled by mules, horses, or dog sleds farther into the interior.  Today it is largely a tourist attraction, with gift stores, place to eat, river rafting excursions, and flights to glaciers on Mt. McKinley.

We signed up for a flight up to a glacier on Mt. McKinley the next day and walked into town to look around.

This town was the model for the town in the television show Northern Exposure.  One of the locals told us that the high school (fed by three towns) graduated 22 last year.  This general store reminded me of the one in my grandmother’s home town in Illinois.   There was a little bit of everything in the store, from bread to bait and from animal skins to snacks.

That night I made chicken kabobs on the grill for dinner.  We finished the day with a little ice cream while watching an episode of the Mission Impossible TV show.  It began to rain that night.  The next morning, clouds hung low in the sky and visibility was limited.  Our flight to the glacier was cancelled.  We, therefore, took our time getting packed up and then headed toward the entrance to Denali National Park.

One of our stops this day was in Denali State Park, where we saw the Alaska Veteran’s Memorial.  Nearby were some VERY interesting placards describing interesting vignettes about Alaska at War, mostly WWII and the Cold War.  There was also a story about a Confederate ship, the Shenandoah, which was sent to Alaska to sink Union whaling boats.  Apparently, profits from whale hunting were important sources of revenue to finance the war.  The Shenandoah sank 6 or 8 Union whaling vessels, continuing its mission for six months after the war had officially ended.  There is debate among historians as to whether the crew knew the war was over and kept sinking ships anyway.  This whole memorial area was a really unexpected gem.

You can see by this picture that it was drizzly all day, and visibility was limited.  We should have been able to see Mt. McKinley most of the day, but the thick clouds got in the way.  We eventually arrived at our campsite just a few miles outside the gate to the Denali National Park.  I barely had time to finish cooking burgers for dinner on our little grill before the sky opened up.  We are told that the weather will get progressively better throughout the weekend, so we have hopes of a good visit to the National Park and making another attempt to fly up the mountain and land on a glacier.

This year’s family vacation is a trip to Alaska.  Once again, Candy has painstakingly planned this event.  Day one was a travel day from Baltimore through Detroit through Seattle to Anchorage.  In Detroit Metro airport we had a long layover, which enabled us to get a stack of Coney Island hotdogs at National Coney Island.  I was quite disappointed in not being able to find a Vernors ginger ale.

We also learned — almost by accident — that there is a USO-like organization operating in the Detroit airport, so we had a chance to sit on comfortable couches and have a drink in a quiet place while we waited for our flight.

After nearly 10.5 hours in the air and two layovers, we finally caught a glimpse of Alaska.  You can see a glacier under the wing along the southeastern coast of Alaska.  This was about 0100 East Coast time.

We are renting an RV for this trip.  We arrived after the rental agency, Great Alaska Highways, was closed.  The rental agency is used to having people arrive late, so they had the keys for our RV on the rear wheel and allowed us to sleep in it overnight.  The picture above was taken at about 2200 at night; Anchorage had 17.5 hours of daylight yesterday.  We arrived got to bed after midnight after we unpacked our suit cases into the various drawers, closets, and cubby holes.  The next morning we got our training on the RV and were on our way.

Our first stop was downtown anchorage for a trolley tour and brief history lesson.  We learned quite a bit about the great earthquake (the second largest in world history) and some other interesting facts.

I found this sign near the visitor’s center interesting.

After a couple of hours wandering around some gift shops, we headed out of town.  Our first stop was our proposed camp sight for the first night — just a couple miles outside Anchorage near Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson.  We reserved our camp sight and then went to visit the Alaska Heritage Center.

The Alaska Heritage Center includes villages representing the 11 major cultural groups in Alaska.  Most had high school aged docents from those regions and cultures who described the traditional dwellings, tools, and other artifacts.  Except in the southeastern part of Alaska, which is classified as rainforest, most of the state is permafrost.  The native Alaskans built semi subterranean dwellings that protected them from the harsh temperatures.  The picture above shows the entrance to a reproduction of one such dwelling.

In addition there were a number of talks by the high school aged kids and some demonstrations of native dancing and sports.  The picture above shows one native athletic event in which the participant, starting from a standing position, jumps straight up and tries to kick a ball hanging in the air.  The demonstrator placed third in the recent native Alaskan athletic games.

We also took the time to do something really touristy at the Alaskan Heritage Center:  we got pulled in a training sled around a short course by a team of dogs that completed this year’s Iditarod competition.  Afterward we had a chance to see some of the dogs, who were amazingly friendly.  I expected them to be more wild.

After about four hours at the Alaska Heritage Center we went to Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson to stock up our camper with food for the next week or so.  Then we retired to our camp sight for a light dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken noodle soup.  We were quite tired from the previous day’s traveling and late night, so we hit the sack early.

The temperature was between 55 and 65 all day.  The weather and scenery were terrific.

 

This past week I was one of five adults who supported a trip to hike the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim.  (Venturing is a program of Boy Scouts of America that is co-ed.)  The trip included three major phases:  two days in Bryce Canyon, four days in the Grand Canyon, and two days in Las Vegas.

Early last Saturday we flew from BWI to Las Vegas with all our camping gear.  Then we rented a 15-passenger van (with surprisingly little cargo capacity) for the three hour drive to Bryce Canyon.  Despite the cramped conditions in the vehicle, everyone was in high spirits.  We stopped at Walmart near the airport and bought all our food for the camping days and then headed to Bryce.

We spent a day and a half hiking around Bryce Canyon.  This was a good shakedown and opportunity for people to exercise those hiking muscles prior to the main event.

We camped two nights in the Bryce Canyon campground and hiked during the day.  A couple of the adventurous kids and I got up early to see the sunrise over the hoodoos.

Our last morning in Bryce we took a final hike to see the “mossy cave.”  Nearby was a nice side hike up to a window formed in the rocks by wind and erosion.

This last hike was a lot of fun.  I remember making this hike with our kids many years ago the first time we visited Bryce.  We crammed ourselves back into the van and drove three hours to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  We chose to start our rim-to-rim hike from the North Rim because it is 1000 feet higher than the South Rim.  We figured this would be a slightly easier route.

The first day, North Rim to the Cottonwood campground, began at 0540.  Our aim was to avoid hiking in the heat of the day.  It was actually cold when we departed, so you can see some of the folks wearing jackets in the picture below.  As we moved down into the canyon, the temperature rose.

Below you can see us snaking around a switchback.  You can see in the background just how deep we were going to go during this first hike.

The first portion of the hike involved a large number of switch backs.  After hiking for about a mile and a half, we stopped to rest.  I was thinking that the hike wasn’t as bad as I expected, but then it got worse!

There is debate among the Crew as to whether the first or last day was harder.  After we crossed the bridge shown below, the sun came out, and the next couple of miles were brutal.

The scenery throughout the hike to Cottonwood was breathtaking.  The hike was about 7 miles long, and we were pretty tired when we finally stopped.

We arrived at Cottonwood by noon.  There was little shade in the Spartan campsite.  The temperatures was over 100 degrees.  Some of the folks sought the little shade that was available and played cards.  I took four of the kids to see the Ribbon Falls (pictures to be posted in a subsequent article).  While I didn’t feel like hiking an extra three miles, Ribbon Falls were definitely worth the effort.

The “girls'” campsite was visited by a small rattlesnake which slowly made its away across the trail to another site.

The next morning we set out early through “the box” from Cottonwood to Phantom Ranch.  We set out early to avoid the direct sun.  It worked.  All day (7.2 miles) the direct sunlight was blocked by the high canyon walls, so we arrived at Phantom Ranch in good condition.

The walk was mostly downhill, and the terrain wasn’t very rough.  Because we avoided the direct sunlight, the hike was pleasant.  We actually arrived at Phantom Ranch sooner than we had expected.

We turned around a corner and found a sign saying “Bright Angel Campground .3 miles ahead.”  Phantom Ranch has flush toilets and a terrific creek in which to sit and cool off.  It also had Kamikaze squirrels who preyed on our backpacks looking for food.  In fact, they’ve gotten so used to stealing food from campers that they are attracted to the smell of plastic bags in which food is usually stored.

The temperatures at Phantom Ranch reached 120 degrees by mid afternoon.  The thermometers near the Bright Angel Campground said it “felt like” 130 degrees.

That night we had a wonderful steak dinner.  You have to reserve and pay for this in advance.  All the food is carried down by mule that day and included very good steaks, baked potatoes, corn, peas, cornbread, and a great salad.  I was surprised at the fresh butter and sour cream for the potatoes.  Every was stuffed.  After dinner many of us hit the sack early, but a couple of the kids came back to the canteen to play cards.  The next morning we had a bacon, eggs, and pancakes breakfast and picked up bag lunches before heading out.   These pre-paid meals allowed us to reduce the weight in our packs by three meals.  All the food was excellent.

We were up at four and on the trail by 0530.  Just outside Phantom Ranch we crossed over the Colorado River on this bridge, which was narrow and swayed as people tromped over it.  The view was amazing.

A little way up the hill toward Indian Garden, you can see the view of the river and the Silver bridge.

The hike from Phantom Ranch to Indian Garden was about 5 miles, mostly up hill.  At the end of the hike there were lots of sore muscles and tired campers.  We made this hike in just over three miles and arrived at the campground sooner than expected.

While Indian Garden had a creek that was deemed “lame” by the kids compared to the creeks at either Cottonwood or Phantom Ranch, all the campsites had shade.  We had thick cloud cover all afternoon, which further cut the heat.  A couple of us even managed to take a nap in the late morning.

The next morning we woke at 0300, planning a 0430 start time for the last 4.5 miles of the hike to the South Rim.  This was straight up for 4.5 miles.  The picture above gives you a sense for the climb.  We stopped every 1.5 miles for a water break.

Less than a mile from the South Rim and the Bright Angel trailhead we saw this sign: “Going down is optional; up is mandatory.”

Here is another picture which provides some idea of the difficulty of the climb with full backpacks.  In the center is the three mile rest house from a few minutes farther up the trail.

At 0830, a half hour ahead of schedule, we arrived at the trailhead.  I asked everyone to pretend they were tired for this pictures, since none of us were really tired.

Everyone did well.  Several had doubts when we began whether they could finish the walk.  “Up is mandatory,”  however.  In the end, many of the participants accomplished more than they expected and learned something about themselves.  More importantly at the end of four tough days, everyone was still friends.  We had no serious sun burns and few injuries, other than three bruised toes.

Just a few minutes after we completed the hike, Candy showed up with the van.  After spending an hour repacking duffle bags in shoving all our gear back in the van, we all headed for the gift shop to get our “rim to rim” T-shirts.  After a large lunch in the nearby lodge, we headed to Williams, Arizona for some rest and relaxation, which included showers, time in the pool, showers, horseshoes, showers, pizza, showers, and early bedtime.

On 26 September 2013 I participated in my formal retirement ceremony conducted by the Old Guard at Conmy Hall at Ft. Myer, VA.  More pictures can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/theoldguard/sets/72157635920974634/.

Many family, friends, and co-workers attended, including Marcel “Frenchy” Lettre, who was my battalion commander when I was a company commander (above); my parents, mother-in-law, sister, and brother-in-law; a couple of folks I wargame with; and many of the people with whom I have been working.

I was disappointed when I learned that the ceremony would be indoors, but with the lowered lights and spotlights, the ceremony was terrific.

The presiding officer for these ceremonies is selected from the (many!) general officers stationed in the national capital region.  I was pleasantly surprised to know the presiding officer for my ceremony.  I had first worked with COL Greene when I was a PM at DARPA and he was PM Battle Command at Ft. Monmouth.  Then, when I was Chief of Staff for Research, Development, and Engineering Command, BG Greene was our deputy commander.  In fact, I attended his promotion ceremony to BG.  Now he is a major general working for the chief of Army acquisition.  He had nice comments to make to all us retiring soldiers and our families.

Thirty nine of us held our retirement ceremony Thursday morning.  Each of us received a retirement certificate and a folded US flag individually.  People asked why I opted for the ceremony at Ft. Myer rather than doing something at Ft. Meade.  First, at Ft. Meade it can be difficult to get visitors through the gates.  I think those who attended the ceremony would agree that it would be difficult to top the send off provided by the Old Guard.

The ceremony was in the middle of the day, so we scheduled a party for the evening when we thought more people would be able to attend.   When the smoke cleared, we think we had about 80 people attend.  Mark Ryan (right in the picture above) gets the award for having travelled the farthest to attend.  He tarred his driveway in the morning on Long Island, drove almost six hours to the party, stayed until about 2100, and then drove four hours home.

When I was a PM, we used to host about three events this size each year.  We quickly found that we spent so much time managing the food platters and drinks that we never got to spend time with our guests.  We typically hire a girl we know who we think can keep up with everything to manage this part of the party for us.  For this party, Hannah did a very good job helping us manage the party, keeping trays full, reheating food, taking out trash, etc.

While the guests initially broke into their “comfort” groups, we did try to encourage intermingling.

It was a nice day, despite my mixed feelings about taking off the uniform.  I will have to adjust to being “just another guy.”  Yesterday, I was in the mall and I was joking to my daughter that I didn’t want to go into a store with her that had “Navy” in the name.  She said “you’re not in the Army any more.”  That’s not exactly true.  A retiree from the Army is subject to recall to active duty until age 60.  More importantly, the Army isn’t just a job, or even a profession.  It’s even more than the camaraderie based on shared suffering, experiences, and accomplishments — even if any two people have never actually served together.  It’s a way of life, and there are many aspects of being a soldier and being a colonel that I will miss as I change my signature block from “Colonel, US Army” to “Colonel, US Army, Retired.”  I’ve been wearing the uniform of this nation for 32 years, beginning as a cadet at West Point.  While you can take the soldier out of the Army, I don’t think you can ever take the Army out of the soldier.

On a side note, I had lost my dog tags in an airport screening machine at BWI airport and didn’t notice it until the next day.  I’ve had that same set of dog tags for more than 20 years, and I wear them every day, including my time in Iraq, Korea, and Italy, through jump school and Ranger school, during hundreds of days in the field, so I was sad to lose them two days before my retirement.  Yesterday, I got a hold of TSA lost and found at BWI and learned that they found my dog tags, so I will be able to pick them up today.  After almost 30 years I have an emotional attachment to them, and I was sad that I might have lost them.  I guess that’s what comes of clean living.  

Tomorrow is my official retirement ceremony; although, I don’t become a civilian until 1 October.  Today I had a last “official” type photo taken in uniform.  Tomorrow I’ll take it off for the last time.  I have mixed emotions over all this.

Today I completed my final out-processing from the Army and began what is ominously called “terminal leave.”  I will be on “terminal leave” the remainder of the week and then return to work on Monday as the deputy of the technology development program in which I was one of several project managers.  It’s interesting and important work.  Most importantly it will allow me to keep my kinds in one school throughout high school.  Today I wore my Army Combat Uniform (ACU’s) for the last time, which made me sad.  Thursday I wear the Army Service Uniform (ASU) (the dress blue uniform) for the last time during my formal retirement ceremony.

This past three-day weekend I went with the Venture Crew to backpack in Shenandoah National Park.  This was meant to be the kids’ first overnight, long-distance, back-country, backpacking trip in preparation for our planned trip to the Grand Canyon next Summer.  The kids did a very good job for their first trip of this kind.

After fighting our way through traffic in the global epicenter of stupid (DC), we stopped along 66 for dinner at Pizza Hut.  We then continued to Shenandoah National Park, arriving near 2200 at our camp site in Big Meadows camp ground.

The next morning we drove along Skyline Drive for about 50 miles stopping from time to time at scenic overlooks.  Unfortunately there was a mist covering the valley, so some of the views weren’t as spectacular as they might have been.

At one stop, some of the kids decided to climb a tree.  What isn’t clear from this picture is that the bottom limb on which the two girls are sitting was about eight or nine feet in the air.

At another stop the kids did some rock climbing.  These are all the kids who came on the trip, minus one girl who joined us later in the day.

After hiking a couple of miles on Saturday, the sky opened up, and we were drenched.  At one point we took refuge under a rock overhang while the storm passed.

After hiking about three miles and linking up with our missing crew member we set up camp in a fern-covered area.  This was probably the first time that most of the kids had camped in a non-prepared, meadow-like camp ground with comfort facilities.  Setting up camp went well, and the kids enjoyed a good night.  Several of the girls kept the rest of us up quite late with their squeeling and giggling.

Sunday was “death march” day.  We had planned to hike about six miles, but at the six-mile mark we were on the side of a steep mountain with few good sites to set up six or seven tents.  By the time we reached a decent campsite, we had marched over 10 miles over goat trails and rough terrain.  I’m proud of the way the kids kept up their spirits despite the exertion.

Along the way we stopped at a stream to replenish our water bottles and soak our feet in the cool, swiftly-moving water.  Water purification techniques included filter systems and iodine tablets.

We finally made camp on this rocky outcropping.  Again it was a new experience for many of the hikers to camp in an unimproved and less-than-ideal location.  Some of the kids found small patches of moss or grass on which to pitch their tents.  The boys ended up on a steep slope and spent the night sliding down inside their tents.  The good news was that the water soaked through their tent, so they got to be wet all night too!

… But this was our view from our rocky campsite.  Wow!  I woke up about 30 minutes before the others and watched the mist passing between the various lines of mountains in the distance.  It was quite a morning.

The kids really enjoyed their 24+ hours afloat.  I wasn’t with them (as described in my previous post), but I’ve included some pictures that Candy took to give an idea of what the kids did.  As they set sail, it was raining, but by mid day the rain had abated, the weather turned nice, and they began to enjoy themselves more.  Living in Maryland, many of the kids have been on boats before, but the captain, “Skip,” literally showed them the ropes and had them manipulating sales and taking the helm.

On the way out of the Inner Harbor, they passed the Francis Scott Key buoy.  This is thought to be the location from which he watched the bombardment of Ft. McHenry the night he wrote The Star Spangled Banner.  Tommy said that you could barely see the fort from this point.  You can see that it was still overcast when they passed this point, but Tommy thought that he could probably only see the flag and not the fort itself.  Certainly this would be true at night.

 

The kids prepared meals for all on board, including Skip and his first mate.  Lunch was simple fare — salt beaf, hard tack, and rum.  Actually, it was ham and cheese sandwiches, but that doesn’t sound as nautical.  For dinner they made cheese burgers on Skips shipboard grill.  Breakfast consisted of French toast and bacon.

About 4:00 they dropped anchor near Annapolis.  The kids broke out Skip’s foldable boat and played in the water for an hour.  Scuttlebutt is that the water was warm if you kept moving, but was chilly if you sat still.

After dinner they played more Kung Fu Fighting and then hit the sack.  The girls took up the V berth below decks.  Tommy and Ryan had to sleep on deck, which they didn’t mind until about 11:00 PM when it started to rain on them.

The first thing Erin had to tell me when I met them at the dock was that she got to pilot the ship under the Bay Bridge.  Skip said he doesn’t often let the Sea Scouts do that, particularly on their first voyage.  Tommy said that Erin was quite good at maneuvering the boat.

On the way back to the Inner Harbor, Skip’s engine overheated and began smoking.  They came into the harbor on just wind power until the last mile or so when Skip turned the engine on long enough to approach the dock.  In addition, over the emergency radio, they heard a report of a boat taking on water and saw a Coast Guard boat speed by to rescue them.

Before releasing the crew, Skip sat them down and complimented them on their performance and attitude as well as the way they quickly learned the needed skills.  This has become a common theme with the Venture Crew.  There’s lots wrong with American society and our largely ill culture, but the kids in the Venture Crew routinely impress me with their maturity, teamwork, and support for each other.  This is a tremendous group of kids, and they are a pleasure to be around.  You parents out there should be proud of these kids!

By the middle of the week, the kids were starting to get worn out.  After the late-night Kung Fu and all the physical activities, the kids were showing some signs of fatigue.  I was getting worried that they weren’t having much fun on Wednesday, but by the end of the day, they had perked back up.

I had a lot of trouble getting Tommy and Ryan out of bed.  In fact, they barely made it to the morning formation.  I guess they were up half the night goofing around.  I remember those days when I was a kid when you could talk all day to your best friend about nothing and just have the best time.

We did finally make it to formation and breakfast.  The kids had some trouble with the powdered eggs, but again, I thought they were okay — particularly for camp food after a strenuous day.  After breakfast, we were off to high COPE.  Normally, they would have done a second day of low COPE, but since many of the Venturers had other activities scheduled for Thursday and Friday, Scott wanted the kids to get a taste of high COPE.  The kids all got to do three events, while taking turns belaying and helping in other ways.  The three events were the giant’s ladder, which was meant to be a two-person, cooperative event, a traverse of a two-rope bridge, and a zip line.

The first two people up the giant’s ladder were Maddie and Sammy — the shortest kids in the group.  While they both struggles somewhat, they helped each other get up the ladder.  Sammy was actually able to shinny up the cable between the rungs!

 

Erin did a very nice job helping her partner up the ladder.  He was struggling a bit, but Erin didn’t seem to mind the height and helped push him up to the next run.

I don’t know if the kids appreciate these scout experiences.  I didn’t get to do things like this until I joined the Army.  How much easier Beast Barracks and the Infantry Officer Basic Course would have been if I had had these opportunities!

The instructors said that to be an instructor you have to be able to traverse the giant’s ladder solo.  Tom basically negotiated the ladder himself while helping Ryan, who has an injured shoulder.  Tommy and Ryan were trying to set a record pace for the day.  Tommy really made the ladder look effortless.

Looking a bit tired after two and a half strenuous days and a big lunch.  Instead of climbing, the kids elected to go back down to the waterfront to sail and perhaps ride the giant float/tube again.

Because the floats were both broken, the scouts decided to get in these little two-man sail boats and sail into the river.  Left alone on the dock, without even a buddy with which to swim in the bath-warm water, I elected to ride in the power boat with two scouts who were trying to learn to ski.

After both of the scouts had several tries, coming close to getting up on their skis, I was able to get in the water and ski myself, which was fun.

After dinner we set up some cones in a big field and started our own nine-player ultimate frisbee game.  The teams were Mike, Tommy, Sammy, and Michela vs. Jamie (Michela’s dad who joined us for the day), Ryan, Maddie, Erin, and me.  Our team got stomped 10 to 3.  We were hoping to attract other interested players so that all of us could play on the same team, but most of the Venturers were at the pistol range.  It was an intense game, and I think everyone had a great time.  I was once again reminded that I am no longer 20.  Following our game, we all sat around joking.  I picked up blade of grass to put between my thumbs as a reed to make noise.  All the other crew members started doing it too.  Ryan went for loud and ugly, nearly coughing up a spleen.  Maddie could actually play notes and did a pretty good job of emulating “To the Colors,” the bugle call used at morning and evening formations at Broad Creek.

As we were getting ready to take a shower, “Bongo,” one of the camp commissioners, told us that they had set up a camp fire in our camp site and wondered why none of the Venturers were participating.  As I mentioned earlier most of the Venturers were at the pistol range, so this was just a matter of one too many simultaneous events.  We told him we were going to take showers and then would join the program; however, they were filing the pool, which meant there was no pressure in any of the showers, so we just wandered over to the camp fire.  As we all had an early morning ahead of us, we all elected to go to bed before 10:00 PM.