Troop Beverly Hills

*written on 5/21/10*

This is the name, I've started to affectionately call G's scout troop. Don't get me wrong, she's had an amazing year there, the program is solid, she's learned a lot and the parent volunteers are amazing! I just recently thought of this name for them, after I learned that their summer camping trip would be to non other than a ritzy South Joco park-that adjoins the neighborhood golfcourse. *I have absolutely nothing against nice neighborhoods, but when planning a true camping experience for scouts, it's not my first thought of roughing it to say the very least.* So that's when I started thinking of Troop Beverly Hills. I'm sure most of you have seen the '80's movie with Shelly Long as the troop leader of the California girls who are totally clueless to most things of the real world. I grew up in GS's from K-5th grade, and had a few high maintenance girls in the group, but not a whole troop go camping next a golf course for goodness sakes. Of course I get to join in this fun and exciting day (note sarcasm here), and get to help plan the badge activities with fire safety and campfire songs. It will be interesting to see if they will get pre-packaged firewood all nice and neat, or if they will actually have to go through the "forest" and pick up kindling, and other types of wood used to make a fire. They are staying in brand new cabins with a nice bath house next door, so that's really roughing it.

I've always been a super outdoorsy girl. On our HS Mexico Missions trip, we had to sleep in 115 degree dusty tents, the outhouses were maybe a 5 minute walk and we had buckets for showers. On HS float trip, I think my freshman year, we got the worst torrential rain storm, and flooded a lot of things, including our tents, clothes and long road to the bathrooms. My friends Erin, Rachael and I were the only girls out of the whole group who roughed it in the wet tents, and could survive the weekend without hiding in the cabin with the girls who couldn't survive without their curling irons and make-up. So I've really been through the worst of it, but have never gotten to experience the fun world of joco scout camping :)

Stay tuned next month to hear how the wonderful adventure concludes.... will we survive a day on the golfcourse park??? will the girls be able to survive without texting each other all day??? will they cook true campfire food, or will it be gourmet???

*update on 6/12/10*

The girls were all excited, and we had just started working on our hiking and photography badge, and then we had a crazy storm with rain, wind, lightning and possibly a tornado warning come through shortly after camp started. Which led us to be stuck inside the clubhouse, ahem "nature center" for 5 hours. That's right I said 5 hours. I initially thought I was going to lose my mind, and possibly go a little stir crazy being inside a confined space with 30 girls and 15-20 adults? The poor park rangers were probably wishing they weren't working that day. We toughed it out, and I had hoped at times, they would just cancel the day, but no, the storm cleared and it was back outside to a hot and humid day. We went on a mile walk, got to see a flooded trail, which luckily no one got swept away in. The girls finished their badgework, made sit-upons and tie dye t-shirts and learned all about campfire safety. I was on the verge of losing my voice from my allergies/cold so got out of leading the campfire songs. The meals were great. We had tortilla wraps with fixings for lunch and roasted our own hotdogs for dinner. G had her first smores and loved them. I actually had a good time getting to know some of the moms a little better, and talk about our different backgrounds, and school choices, public vs. private etc. And it was actually very interesting. We even talked about how they liked camping roughing it in tents better than cabins. Which really took me by suprise. It was just nice to realize that my perceptions aren't always true. We finally made it home around 9pm that night after a very long 12 hrs, but we had a great time, and a time neither of us will forget.