It's nice to be back home again, but I sure love camping.  Even if it's full of bugs and dirt.  I even love it when it rains like it did this morning as we were packing up. We did stop by the East side of the lake and pick up the Boy Scout themed geocache, which was cool because I picked up a 1999 Big Event pin.  Though I doubt that I'll hold on to it, because I generally only like to collect patches and pins for events that I attended.

We're spending the weekend camping at Willard Bay.  So today we spent the day at the beach, which my kids loved. My son and I spent some of the time geocaching, but unfortunately the caches in the park had been vandalized but we were able to get in a decent hike of a couple of miles and spent some quality time together. We also went to Brigham City for some Peach City Ice Cream.  Tonight we roasted some marsmallow's (correction: the kids roasted marshmallow's, I drank Black Cherry and ate Nilla's).  Tomorrow we head for home.

With the new policy from the National BSA offices, as of January 1, 2010 I'll be given duties closer to base camp. I'm sure that my wife won't object.

As a kid my grandparents had a membership to CamperWorld.  We went there quite a bit.  I have fond memories of several trips to Bear Lake as a kid and staying at the campground up there. They've since sold their membership, but I've wanted to purchase one and start going again. After reading this story, I'm kind of glad that I haven't.

We made homemade Won Tons for dinner tonight.  We didn't do anything fancy, but they were pretty good.  I actually thought that they would be a pretty simple and easy meal to make on a Scout camp out. We bought the Won  Ton wraps at Wal*Mart, then took Cream Cheese and canned chicken and mixed it together, put a small amount in the middle of the wrap, closed it up, put it into the hot oil and let it cook.  With a little modification, you could easily make them at camp.  Basically you could use a Dutch Oven instead of a Fry Daddy and you're good to go. For Dessert we just filled them with Cream Cheese and dipped them in Strawberry and/or Chocolate Syrup. The nice thing is that they were cheap to make, very filling, interactive to make and good to eat. We also had Fortune Cookies, and if you've been following me and fortune cookies for a while you know my luck with them. Well, I had two.  The first one said that I would be getting a new home in an area full of sunshine in the next year (not sure that I really want to live in Florida) and I can't find (or remember) the other one right now for some reason, but it had something to do with new opportunities coming up.

Currently in a tent in the West Desert.  The weather's not bad.  No wind, but pretty cold.  Even though there's been a bit of snow in the valley, the desert is pretty dry (aka, no mud). Rather than bringing a pile of warm blankets and my air mattress, I decided to just bring my new bivy sack along with my new fleece sleeping bag and my old down sleeping bag.  I put the fleece bag inside of the down bag and those inside of the bivy sack. I didn't dare sleep out in the elements quite yet, but here in the tent on my cot (on a thin sleeping pad) I'm quite warm.  Now that I've finally learned to take the bag with me when I toss and turn instead of trying to move inside of the bag, in retrospect I think that I should have purchased the mummy bag instead of the rectangular bag.  Oh well, I guess I can do that when I wear this bag out.  At least with all of that extra material down at the bottom, my feet are warm. Overall, it's been a nice camp.  Now if only I could actually sleep.

Back from camping, the weather forecast was for Rain and Snow, turns out we didn't have a problem. Every time I've gone camping for the last 18 months, we've had good weather for a majority of the camp.  There was one time last August that we were rained on, but that actually helped the camp and didn't ruin it. So the streak continues.  I realize that I'm probably pushing my luck at this point, but I don't mind a little bad weather every so often either.

Laying here in a tent in my sleeping bag, trying to sleep.  I haven't resorted to counting sheep yet, but I am listening to my iPod hoping that will help. I have this real problem when I camp, I never get much sleep.  I don't know what it is, but even if I do doze off a little I sleep so lightly that I wake up with the slightest noise. You would think with going camping nearly every month of the last 16 or so months that I would get used to it and be able to get in a good night every so often, but it never seems to happen. Oh well, at least I'm not freezing too.

In roundtable this evening I spoke about Summer Camps and especially the Varsity Big Event.  I've gone each of the last couple of years and have loved it. It's held at the East Fork of the Bear scout camp and is a great (and cheap) camp to attend.  I'm not sure what my plans are for this year, but I think that I'll be attending either with the Varsity Team that I was previously working with (if they'll have me) or I'll serve on Staff (again if they'll have me). You can see some information here. It's also a great camp for any Varsity Scouters looking to complete some Wood Badge tickets.  They are always looking for Staff Assistance.

Going camping tonight.  Of course the weather report is looking pretty bad, but we haven't had trouble with the weather on any of our camps yet this year, so I'm confident that it will be just fine.