Life at the Academy

Not my first backpacking trip, but Boxman’s and Buster’s first.  I had prior commitments so I couldn’t go with them last weekend.  My first, and only, backpacking trip was 20-something years ago when I went with my brother’s Boy Scout troop on the Appalachian Trail.  Boxman and Buster were attempting an 11.2 mile trek in Oklahoma with Buster’s new Boy Scout troop.  I was pretty nervous about letting them go without me.  Buster wasn’t really prepared for it and Boxman had no idea what he might be getting himself into.  The fact that he overpacked just added to my nervousness.  They were to leave last Saturday morning but only had decided on Thursday that they were going for sure.  Fortunately, the troop had a child-sized backpack that Buster could borrow for the trip and we had several packs that my dad had given us once for Boxman to choose from.

The troop also had tents for the boys to use, but parents had to provide their own.

Boxman had splurged on a nice backpacking tent a few weeks ago when he heard about this trip, so he was excited to get to use it.

They both had hiking boots although Buster’s were hardly broken in. I went and bought some hiking socks for him and sock liners for both of them. Boxman didn’t know he needed sock liners but he was glad he had them.

I also bought them Mountain House freeze dried food, and plenty of other good snacks. Of course when dinner time came and they were making their freeze dried macaroni and cheese, nobody seemed to know how many ounces were in a cup. The directions said to use 2 cups of water and they used 32 ounces! See, I knew they needed me to come along. But they did survive without me and both of them had a great time.

It helped that they cut the hike a little short due to some “issues” one boy had.