{"id":2047,"date":"2013-08-01T19:13:36","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T19:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bucksurdu.com\/blog\/?p=2047"},"modified":"2013-08-01T19:13:36","modified_gmt":"2013-08-01T19:13:36","slug":"venture-week-wednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/2013\/08\/01\/venture-week-wednesday\/","title":{"rendered":"Venture Week: Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"

By the middle of the week, the kids were starting to get worn out. \u00a0After the late-night Kung Fu and all the physical activities, the kids were showing some signs of fatigue. \u00a0I was getting worried that they weren’t having much fun on Wednesday, but by the end of the day, they had perked back up.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A sleepy Tommy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had a lot of trouble getting Tommy and Ryan out of bed. \u00a0In fact, they barely made it to the morning formation. \u00a0I guess they were up half the night goofing around. \u00a0I remember those days when I was a kid when you could talk all day to your best friend about nothing and just have the best time.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
An equally sleepy Ryan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We did finally make it to formation and breakfast. \u00a0The kids had some trouble with the powdered eggs, but again, I thought they were okay — particularly for camp food after a strenuous day. \u00a0After breakfast, we were off to high COPE. \u00a0Normally, they would have done a second day of low COPE, but since many of the Venturers had other activities scheduled for Thursday and Friday, Scott wanted the kids to get a taste of high COPE. \u00a0The kids all got to do three events, while taking turns belaying and helping in other ways. \u00a0The three events were the giant’s ladder, which was meant to be a two-person, cooperative event, a traverse of a two-rope bridge, and a zip line.<\/p>\n

\"Sammy<\/a>
Sammy and Maddie helping each other up the "giant's ladder"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first two people up the giant’s ladder were Maddie and Sammy — the shortest kids in the group. \u00a0While they both struggles somewhat, they helped each other get up the ladder. \u00a0Sammy was actually able to shinny up the cable between the rungs!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Maddie<\/a>
Maddie sliding down the zip line<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Sammy<\/a>
Sammy zipping down the line<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Erin<\/a>
Erin and another boy helping each other up the "giant's ladder"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Erin did a very nice job helping her partner up the ladder. \u00a0He was struggling a bit, but Erin didn’t seem to mind the height and helped push him up to the next run.<\/p>\n

\"Michela<\/a>
Michela and a girl named Karen from another crew<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Erin<\/a>
Erin on the zip line<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Michela<\/a>
Michela sliding across the two-rope bridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I don’t know if the kids appreciate these scout experiences. \u00a0I didn’t get to do things like this until I joined the Army. \u00a0How much easier Beast Barracks and the Infantry Officer Basic Course would have been if I had had these opportunities!<\/p>\n

\"Michela<\/a>
Michela on the zip line<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tom<\/a>
Tom and Ryan help each other up the "giant's ladder"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The instructors said that to be an instructor you have to be able to traverse the giant’s ladder solo. \u00a0Tom basically negotiated the ladder himself while helping Ryan, who has an injured shoulder. \u00a0Tommy and Ryan were trying to set a record pace for the day. \u00a0Tommy really made the ladder look effortless.<\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/a>
Tom on the two-rope bridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tom<\/a>
Tom coming down the zip line<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Looking a bit tired after two and a half strenuous days and a big lunch. \u00a0Instead of climbing, the kids elected to go back down to the waterfront to sail and perhaps ride the giant float\/tube again.<\/p>\n

\"Michela<\/a>
Michela and Tommy getting ready to set sail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Because the floats were both broken, the scouts decided to get in these little two-man sail boats and sail into the river. \u00a0Left alone on the dock, without even a buddy with which to swim in the bath-warm water, I elected to ride in the power boat with two scouts who were trying to learn to ski.<\/p>\n

\"Tommy<\/a>
Tommy frantically preparing to sail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After both of the scouts had several tries, coming close to getting up on their skis, I was able to get in the water and ski myself, which was fun.<\/p>\n

\"Music<\/a>
Music (?!) from blades of grass<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After dinner we set up some cones in a big field and started our own nine-player ultimate frisbee game. \u00a0The teams were Mike, Tommy, Sammy, and Michela vs. Jamie (Michela’s dad who joined us for the day), Ryan, Maddie, Erin, and me. \u00a0Our team got stomped 10 to 3. \u00a0We were hoping to attract other interested players so that all of us could play on the same team, but most of the Venturers were at the pistol range. \u00a0It was an intense game, and I think everyone had a great time. \u00a0I was once again reminded that I am no longer 20. \u00a0Following our game, we all sat around joking. \u00a0I picked up blade of grass to put between my thumbs as a reed to make noise. \u00a0All the other crew members started doing it too. \u00a0Ryan went for loud and ugly, nearly coughing up a spleen. \u00a0Maddie could actually play notes and did a pretty good job of emulating “To the Colors,” the bugle call used at morning and evening formations at Broad Creek.<\/p>\n

As we were getting ready to take a shower, “Bongo,” one of the camp commissioners, told us that they had set up a camp fire in our camp site and wondered why none of the Venturers were participating. \u00a0As I mentioned earlier most of the Venturers were at the pistol range, so this was just a matter of one too many simultaneous events. \u00a0We told him we were going to take showers and then would join the program; however, they were filing the pool, which meant there was no pressure in any of the showers, so we just wandered over to the camp fire. \u00a0As we all had an early morning ahead of us, we all elected to go to bed before 10:00 PM.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By the middle of the week, the kids were starting to get worn out. \u00a0After the late-night Kung Fu and all the physical activities, the kids were showing some signs of fatigue. \u00a0I was getting worried that they weren’t having much fun on Wednesday, but by the end of the day, they had perked back … Continue reading Venture Week: Wednesday<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}