Camp Brigham at the Allebes Ranch 3-13-2010

We had a great camp out this weekend at Camp Brigham. Although first off, I want to mention that the only people that actually camped out were Logan & Jared and Bro. J. Everyone else slept in the tack shed or this fort thing (kind of like a tree fort without the tree). The guys in the tack shed were the last one's up too. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that the lock was on the OUTSIDE! HAHAHA.

The real campers had nice tent sites picked out and tents pitched before dark. Most of the other guys came later and wimped out in the buildings. I guess technically they were camping because they slept in their sleeping bags, but it was sort of like when you “camped out” in front of the TV when you were a kid… it’s just not the real thing. But enough of that, things got better from there.

Bro. J's "real" camp site.

We cooked dinner on Brigham’s “cowboy fire ring”. It’s kind of a raised fire pit that has a grill and stuff. The space between the bars of the grill is wider than a hot dog, but we only lost a few of them into the fire. Garrett brought plenty of dogs so there was still enough to go around. And Ryan showed up with ketchup and mustard… too bad we were all done when he got there. But we gave him an A for effort. After dinner Bro. J said he had dessert us. We were pretty excited because he said there was a bag full of junk food for each of us. But then he told us he had hidden them out in the brush and we had to go find them, so 15 screaming scouts headed out into the night with flashlights to find the “treasure”. I’m sure the neighbor didn’t mind since it was still before 10:00pm. We eventually found all 15 bags and only ran into a few Joshua Trees… they have really sharp thorns and we got a few wounds but it was OK because I think only Bro. Jorgenson’s got infected.

So then we all went to bed and slept all night and woke up happy and healthy. Ha! So then actually we played capture the flag for 3 hours and then finally went to bed with only a few slight injuries.

After a good night’s sleep, we woke up and had breakfast and then rode the zip line. If you don’t know what a zip line is, it’s a steel cable strung about 30 feet in the air and about 300 feet long on a decline (that means downhill!). It has a pulley on it and you tie yourself to the pulley and go ZIP down the cable. It’s a nice little ride unless someone grabs the rope and whips you off on a quick start… which they usually do. Some guys even got an extra boost when Brigham grabbed the rope and rode off on the quad pulling them and going pretty fast. Most of the Scouts enjoyed the zip line, even the ones that went upside down and backwards and head first. And nobody got hurt because when we broke it we stopped riding it. Bro. J said that was kind of like a scout safety rule.

He survived... really.

Putting the padded side first in case he hits the pole on the other end.

Bringin' him back... the manual method.

Whip start.

Bouncing him in the middle.

Bringing him back, the easy way.

We did this too.

Then the really cool part was when Brigham brought out a horse and 6 scouts got the Horsemanship merit badge. We got to see how to care for a horse and even got to ride it a little. We didn’t end up bow-legged and no one said ya’ll or anything, but it was fun.

This is how you do this.

I wonder what he is thinking...

Says the horse.

Hey, ya'll are looking purdy good up there.

Patch & Allen

Who's worried the most?

The Gauntlet

Then after lunch we ran the “gauntlet”. This was an obstacle course where we had to step thru 5 tires, climb over hay bales, run along a 20’ 2x4, then roll on the ground under some pipes, run around a barrel, and then go back the same way. This was fun and we looked forward to it the whole time, but by the time we did it we were pretty tired. It was also successful at getting dirt on any part of us that wasn’t already dirty. So, all in all, I’d say it was a successful camp out.

Special thanks to the Allebes family for putting up with the Scouts and helping us have a great time. For an old guy, Brigham is pretty nice and his young and beautiful wife makes great brownies!