Two weekends ago, Ethan and I attended a program put on by our scout council called “Dad & Lad.” It’s a weekend designed around cubs and their dads spending time outside together in an activity based setting. It’s held at Camp Miakonda in Sylvania, Ohio. There’s also a companion weekend a couple weeks later called “Mom & Me” where the moms spend an overnight with the scouts.
Everyone was split into groups that contained boys from our Cub Scout Pack and we then moved from activity to activity together as a group. That was nice since the kids had some friends around them and the adults knew each other a little bit as well.
The first activity we took part in was archery. Here Ethan receives some instruction on how to shoot the arrow.
He got a little frustrated with the first round of arrows he shot. But when the 2nd time came around and he did better at hitting the target than Dad? Well, he felt much better then. I still don’t know where one of mine went, somewhere in the next county possibly.
We moved on to BB Guns after bow and arrow and that was fun too. The kids had to lay on their stomachs and shoot at the targets. Kids were hitting targets, kids were missing targets, kids were hitting other kids targets but they all had fun cause they got to shoot as much as they wanted.
At one point Ethan asked me if I wanted to shoot one, I said “sure” and took the gun. The targets are on 8 1/2″x11″ paper that is clipped to two horizontal pieces of string. Well I took aim, shot and then paper flew up from the bottom. My thought was that I hit the paper just right at the bottom to make it fly out of the clothespin. Nope, at the end of the session when we retrieved the targets we saw that instead I had hit the clothespin and split it in half. The paper flew up because there was nothing left to hold it to the string. Couldn’t make that shot again! There are 2 marks on the clothespin from BBs. Ethan says he made the other one, and with the sights of the gun off as far as they were, he just may have.
After a lunch of hamburgers, chips, coleslaw, macaroni salad and cookies it was easy to identify which children had the fruit punch and which had the orange drink. There were multi-colored mustaches all over camp.
BMX was next. The camp has about 20 bikes available for the kids to ride in a short course roped off through some woods. The kids all had a blast racing each other over the dirt trails.
After they were sufficiently worn out a bunch of the adults, including myself, climbed aboard these 20″ kid bikes and raced each other. I’m sure we looked like a bunch of idiots but it sure was fun. I’ll have to find someone that took pictures of that. (I’ll bet the moms won’t do that!)
There was one muddy area near the start/finish line and at first the kids kinda avoided it, after all their parents were right there. But we encouraged them to have fun and before you knew it every boy was plowing through this little ditch.
Some kids got into it more than others. The boy walking with Ethan managed to get a line of mud up his back and his front, including his face. I congratulated his dad on having the muddiest kid.
Next activity on the agenda was a series of experiments. I remember most of them, there was: cleaning tarnished pennies with lemon juice, making straw paper snakes, making a balloon race across a string by attaching it to a drinking straw, making raisins bob up and down in clear soda (very cool), making a yeast and sugar filled water bottle that creates enough CO2 to fill an attached balloon. But the activity that the kids liked the best was making baking soda rockets.
Simply put a little vinegar in a 35mm film canister and then wrap a teaspoon of baking soda in a square of toilet paper. Insert the folded toilet paper in the top of the canister, not letting it fall to the bottom where the vinegar sits. Then attach the cap and flip it over. The vinegar mixes with the baking soda creating a chemical reaction that sends the film canister into the air. It takes a bit to get the right amount of vinegar and baking soda, but we managed to finally achieve a 2′ high launch. Some kids made it about 4′ and supposedly heights of 6-8′ are possible! Pretty cool.
At the next station The boys learned a little about dutch oven cooking and helped make some simple cornbread that was pretty tasty stuff. I also learned how to clarify butter so it can be taken on the trail for a couple weeks and not spoil. Simply heat the butter to liquify it, then skim off the top layer, supposedly it’s white, and then add salt and it’s good to go.
The last activity before dinner was the obstacle course. For safety reasons the dads had to accompany the kids. Most of the dads did the course right along with the kids but beginning with the 3rd trip around most of us just walked alongside…wearily.
After a dinner of pizza, salad and ice cream bars we all took a little rest till it was time to attend a short chapel service. We were supposed to have an outside campfire to watch all the groups perform their skits (we had chosen and learned one as one of the stations during the day) but because of impending rain close to 300 boys and men all crammed into one of the buildings. The skits were quite good and I was impressed at how well the boys (and dads) really got into performing.
Bedtime, finally. We all crawled into bunkbeds in the cabins around 10pm, slept through some rain and awoke to a cool morning. We packed up our gear, cleaned up the cabin and then headed to breakfast. I had never heard of a “Paul Bunyan Breakfast” before, but here’s how it works: Everyone gets into a circle and slowly walks past the food tables that are set up outside. You grab one pancake, place one sausage link on it, fold it in half like a taco, grab a beverage and while staying in the circle you walk and eat, the idea is that by the time you finish that portion you are back at the table to get more. Works pretty well cause as long as you are hungry you stay in line and when you are full you hop out of line. Because of the eating and walking and talking I was doing it finally dawned on me that I had just finished my 6th pancake/sausage combo. I don’t ever eat that many pancakes!
We had our fill, grabbed our gear, said our goodbyes and headed for home. Ethan went outside and played while I crawled into my bed for a little (long) nap. We had a great time and look forward to coming to the Dad & Lad Weekend again next year.
