兒子出去野營的這兩天，我在網上一遍遍刷屏，看溫度升降，結果越刷越冷，刷到17F，還刷來了雨夾雪。翻箱倒櫃，最厚的衣服都出動了。新買了長筒毛襪子，耐低溫的MUMMY BAG，還有暖手/腳袋，再冷。。再冷就給我滾回來吧！

門外聞車笛，風雪夜歸人。仔細打量，耳朵，鼻子，手指頭，都還沒鍛煉掉。

“兒子，想媽媽了吧？”，遞上一碗熱熱的牛肉湯。

“NOPE。。。。。WHAT？AT LEAST I AM HONEST。 ”

                             ???????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????????????

Klondike

What would you do for a Klondike Bar? Not that kind of Klondike. The kind I'm talking about is the camp out I went on with Boy Scout Troop. 

It was Friday, January 7th when I left for Tunnel Mill in Indiana. Right after I got home from school at 4:00, I had to start packing. The plan was to go to the church in Centerfield and meet up there with the rest of the troop. From there, we were going to make a one hour trip non-stop all the way to Indiana. To save time, we left as soon as we could with our mini-van packed tight. On the way there, there wasn't much talk and it was getting dark at 5:30. 

We finally arrived at around 6:00 and we had to set up our tents in the dark which was pretty challenging. Me, my friend Marcus, and my friend Trent got our tent set up but the other people in our group got lazy and didn't set up theirs, so they had to sleep in our already crowded tent. 5 people in one tent was really crowded that we barely had any place to put our stuff. We had already fit in 4 people and we could hardly fit another person in. But I really didn't care at that point. I was already tired and I really wanted to sleep so I did and left it to them to figure it out.

It was unbelievably warm in my sleeping bag and unbelievably cold outside of it. I woke up suddenly and my head hurt. It felt like I was sleeping on someone’s boot and I was. 

I couldn't see anything in my sleeping bag. I searched for the strap that daddy told me where to get out. I found it and a burst of freezing wind hit me. It stung my eyes so I got back in my sleeping bag and waited.

There was a sudden banging on the tent and a voice told everyone inside to get up. There was movement around me. I decided to wait until everyone else got up. To my left, there was another voice, Cameron's I think asking if everyone else was awake. I told him I was and I got up. Another blast of chilly air hit my face and I woke up for real. 

I got all my layers of clothes on and I left the tent. Overnight, it had snowed and an inch of snow blanketed the ground. It was C-O-L-D. 

I wanted to make breakfast for my patrol but the rule was that I had to wait for everyone else to get out. I sat outside for an hour waiting for them. Marcus was the last. He didn't come out until his dad went in and ordered him to.

By then our breakfast time had  run out. The only thing I ate that morning was a pop tart that someone from the other patrol gave me. 

It was time to pack up the sled. We were about to ran a race from 9 to 5 and the only break we would get was to eat lunch.

We dragged the sled to the main flag pole where we waited for the race to start. A person came over and assigned us to a station because you had to run from station to station to win the race. 

We were to start at station 4. At the station, we had to identify items that a bear could smell and then we had to make a bear bag and hang it on a tree branch that was pretty high off the ground. We did it quickly enough and we got an ok score.

After that, we matched from one to another. It was hard. Some that I didn't participate in due to lack of knowledge. 

Out of all the events, these were some of my favorite.

At one station, we did a tomahawk throw. A tomahawk throw is when there is a target made of wood and we took an axe and threw it and tried to get it stuck in the wood. When you threw, you got four tries and the fourth one was the one that counted. It was pretty hard because the wood was really tough. 

I got to do it first because we drew popsicle sticks and mine said throw. I hit the bottom of the target but the wood was chipped so it didn't stay there. I got to go twice because we had an odd amount of people in our group and there are two people throwing at a time. I didn't get any of them in. Our troop got four axes stuck in, which counted four points. 

At another station we did was fire building. Our task was to build a fire and boil a cup of water over the fire. We had 15 minutes and when the first bubble rose to the top, the clock would stop and that would have been our time. We kept getting a small flame with the same lint but the wood was a little wet. That kept happening for about 14 minutes and 55 seconds. In the last five seconds, we stuck on everything we had and it lit the wood. But no time for boiling water. We didn't make any points. 

Another interesting thing that happened during the race was when we did an orienteering course. We received a map and we had to go all over Tunnel Mill and find little markers and then we had to write down what the markers said. That challenge was the most fun because there were a bunch of fake markers designed to trick you. We ran the course and had to figure out which markers were fake and which ones were real. At the end, we got four out of five markers right which as a good score.

After the last event, we headed back to camp to take down our tents and to eat dinner. This time, we actually cooked our food. We had macaroni and cheese which was a bit salty but still pretty good. 

At the end of the day, we went to the award ceremony to see who got the award for first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. Our troop didn't get an award but none of the awards were even that good.

There was a movie following the ceremony. It was too late for us. We got back in the car with all of our gear and got ourselves ready for another long trip back home.