Webelos-O-Ree 2018

My older son and I went to the National Pike District Webelos-O-Ree at the Baltimore Area Council's campground north of Charm City (so far north, it's almost in Pennsylvania!). We arrived Friday night, before all the action. We were able to set up our tent and get some pizza for dinner with hot chocolate for dessert.

Broadcreek Campground HQ

Making hot chocolate in the dark

The next morning we started with a flag ceremony followed by a gun safety presentation at the shooting range. At the range, our Arrows of Light den picked up the map of stations and the scavenger hunt sheet. We'd use both throughout the day.

Flag ceremony

Getting the map and scavenger hunt

Our first station was a dutch oven cooking station that was fun but too early for any eating. The next station was open fire cooking, including a pig roasting on a spit! The scouts at that station also taught us about different kinds of burns.

Roasting a pig

Demonstrating a third degree burn with quesadillas

We followed our map to the next station which was actually a Webelos I station, not for the Arrows of Light. We didn't know so we practiced putting up tents. It worked out for us since one of our boys hadn't finished that requirement.

Pitching a tent

Almost done

Further on, we discovered the actual next station for the AOLs. The station had a few mental games or challenges, including one where the scouts had to get on the other side of a tarp without stepping off the tarp. I don't know what the solution was because the adults at the station were chatting us up about their Boy Scout troop.

Figuring out the puzzle

Lake-side view

Further along, the boys faced another challenge--scaling a wall where only three boys could be on top at a time. It took a while and some demonstrations by the Boy Scouts to get things working properly.

Demonstrating the start of scaling the wall

My son made it to the top!

Later, we were at the axe/saw station where my son used a bow saw, a hatchet, and an axe.

Bow saw work

Axe swinging

Landing with authority

After lunch, we went to a first aid station that included a house with some realistic-looking injuries. The boys did not actually apply first aid techniques, they just answered questions about what they should do with various injuries, including third-degree burns, axe injuries, and an arrow-pierced scout.

Ouch!

We visited two rope-themed stations. One of the stations was focused on making knots, including the classic square knot and the hitch knots every scout learns. The presentation ended with a tug-of-war between the cub scouts and the boy scouts.

Tug of war

The second rope station focused on lashing and had a see-saw made with bamboo and ropes. We ran into a previous den leader here so I was too busy chatting to take a picture.

We finally made it back to the shooting range. My son enjoyed it a lot and did well.

Getting pointers on pointing his rifle

On target

His target

The station after shooting was fire making. The Boy Scouts here had fine presentation skills. Building a fire was a fun group activity (even if previous stations had some overlap).

Learning about fire

The final station of the day involved a demonstration of cooking in box ovens and a big gaga ball pit. It was a great way to end the stations.

Cooking without gas

The end of the day had a flag-lowering ceremony and some instructions for the campfire. Our pack signed up for two skits.

Closing flag ceremony for the day

The campfire

That night had about ten minutes of fierce wind that blew our tent down. Unfortunately, the damage was not just knocking it over. One of the tent poles snapped off its attachment, requiring a ton of duct tape to make it through the rest of the night. Every couple of hours I woke up and pushed the tent pole back into place.

In the morning, we packed up pretty quickly when we woke up around 6 a.m. Having the tent literally falling down around you was strong motivation. Since we had everything packed up before breakfast, we decided to hit the road afterward. We didn't stick around for the flag ceremony or the camp-wide games.

It was a fun though cold weekend. We're sorry we didn't go last year.