Beach Party Moot 2000
21 - 23 July 2000, Attawonderon Scout Reserve, Grand Bend, Ontario

You know it's the middle of Summer when Beach Party Moot rolls around!  This year was looking like it was going to be another big exciting camp!  In attendance from our crew it was Flynno, Heather J., Todd, Dave and Diana from Niagara Falls.  Yes Diana is the Battlefields regional youth forum chairperson!  Diana got in on the bus from Niagara Falls at 6:10pm and was supposed to be picked up by MOM.  However Mom left work late and was further detained by packing the food for the weekend at home...  After a quick panic call to Todd, he ran down and picked her up.  Then Mom realized how much stuff we had to take and called Flynno, "Do you have any extra space in your car, for some stuff," and dropping it off.  Flynno then zoomed off to pick-up Heather at a car pool near London so she could join us for the Moot.  Mom then met up with Todd and Diana at the Timmies by Scenic and Mohawk.  Todd is now the proud owner of a sporty Honda station wagon (it's goes fast!).  After loading the remaining gear into the back of the wagon we were off!  Well we only got about 3 minutes down the road and stopped at Wendy's but never the less, the weekend had started, YAHOO! The trip down was more or less uneventful. Diana had a snooze, while Dave and Todd sang songs from the radio. Yes, I think we will keep our day jobs, ha ha ha!

Our friend Kevin Dunn, formerly of the infamous 21st Hamilton Rover Crew.

Upon arriving at the camp we pulled up to the registration cabin and checked in. One the way out the door we ran into Mel.B and Albert. GGRRRRR Big Bear hug for Melissa!!! We went back in a chatted for a few minutes, then Flynno and Heather pulled up! "We're all together again we're here were here, We're all together again....." After they registered we loaded back-up into the cars and "DROVE OVER THE HILL!!!" On the way in we almost ran into a couple of 21st'ers walking in the middle of the road, "Why don't U's watch were Y'er go'in and get off the road!" After driving around for a few minutes we found a nice site. We pulled up and piled the gear out of the cars. We shortly came to realize how many tents we had exactly brought. Each one of us had brought our personal tent except for Flynno. Flynno ended setting up a Eureka Kananaskis only to find he was short a few poles. So out comes the Huge-Ass Eureka base Camp. While we were unfolding it we realize that we have two sets of poles, so we put the other ones aside and put up the tent. Just when we thought we have the tent up, we realized, "Wait a second, we need that second set of poles!" The Tent is so Big it needs a Double A-Frame!!!!!  Anyway, with a little doing and some struggling we finally got it up. Then Flynno states "Hey I can park my car in here and still have room to sleep!" Our next Challenge was to put up the Jumbo sized tarp Mom had brought because it was getting a little moist out. With an hour of tinkering it went up.... We tossed our gear into the tents and went around to visit other people! Diana and Heather kept on insisting that we go to the campfire, but everyone we asked had no clue where it was. On our Journey we walked back out to the registration tent, "Back over the Hill," to ask where it was.... Melissa and 
Random people on the beach.  New friends, Dave?  Actually, 'Bacon-girl' is in there...

Albert were in charge of running it, but only two people showed up so they ended up knocking it down. Since the two girls really wanted a fire, we went back over and stoked it up and had our own little one! After singing songs and telling stories we realized how late it was. We put the fire out and walked back to our site. Diana ran into a couple of friends on the way back at there own fire pit so we ended up staying a while.  We got a little too loud singing and talking, someone came up and told us to, "PLEASE BE QUIET, some of us want to sleep," so we sorta complied... A little while later this jumbo sized moth started to fly around. At first we thought it was a bat, then some kind of bird. It landed on one of the guys head and we got a good look at before he flicked it off. It looked like a Giant Butterfly, but had the colours of a moth so we decided it had to be a moth! It was flying around because of the light from the fire, however it eventually flew to close and cooked itself! When we realized it was past 3:00, Mom and Diana said goodnight had headed back to the site.

At about 5:30-6am Flynno's pager went off and he ended up driving all the way into Grand Bend to get phone service on the cell. He was on the phone for almost 2hrs, before he realized that it was some other Depts. fault because they forgot to restore a system after doing some upgrade. Flynno got back in to camp about 8:30. Some time between 7:30 and 8:00 we were serenaded by some half decent singing from the site next to us... After we got up we realized it was church group staying there for the week end. Around 9'ish when we all got up, Mom fixed everyone some Bacon and Eggs on Bread... (he he oops, no PB but we have jam!) By the time we had finished and cleaned up we had just missed opening. We headed out for a morning events and some fun and sun! We did the obstacle course, Horse shoes and ended up playing Volleyball for the rest of the morning. This year there was no cardboard boat race and the sand castle building contest was only run the first half of the morning. So we did not get to build a BIG Huge honking sand castle like last year (MOM even brought a Shovel :(   We headed back for some yummy spicy Burrito's for lunch. After lunch we headed out to the Beach. We drove around Grand Bend for a bit, taking in the scenery while trying to find a parking spot... Todd and Diana took the station wagon while Mom, Heather and Flynno took the Flyno'mobile! Todd and Diana hung out on the beach while the rest of perused around town. Heather found her self a new swim suit and beach Towel! Then we headed down to the beach for some sun and surf. There was also a big Volley ball tournament going on as well, Sorry Huck and Ernie you missed it. Mental Note: come back next summer because it's the site of the 2001 Canada Summer Games for Volley Ball!!! Thank-you to "Kevin Dunn," who thought of bringing a Rover flag so 

Volleyball tourney.

we would know were to come and meet up!! Mom then whips out his nice two seater chair and relaxes. Todd heads into town to check out the Bar scene and a few contests. Diana wandered over and played some more Volleyball, for a person who ref's for a summer job at a private club you would think she would have had enough, guess not! Flynno plunked himself down in the chair and Heather stretched out on the blanket!  After an hour or so everyone packed up a decided to head back. Todd left his bag so we decided to toss it in to the trunk and take it with us. Little did we know Todd had is car keys in it, he he he oops! When we got back to camp, we got changed then sat back and relaxed because they were having trouble with the spit which the pig was roasting on... we later found out the BBQ ran out of propane! After a two hour delay we had supper, MMMMM roast pig! Once supper was finished we had just enough time to go back and change for the dance. The dance was supposed to be down at Iperwash beach, but they decided to have it in camp. They were going to have it the field behind the registration building but after knowing how many years the OPP showed up thinking it was a huge bush party!!! Well you see the Scout Camp borders the south end of the Pinery Prov. Park. One of the camping area's just happin's to be only about 100M away.... There has always been a big bet on when the OPP would show up. So on some better judgement they decided to hold it down on the lower flat well inside camp. We could still see people with flash lights up on the ridge way down at the other end of the flat...The dance would have been a big hit but the two generators kept quitting for the first half and then the DJ didn't have the proper type of extension cords and power bars...... Good thing we knew the words to most of the songs! Later on near the end of the dance they had a Jello eating contest which was fun. However it wasn't set-up fairly because some people had lot's'o'jello and others and very little... I think it would have been Dave or Todd who would have won, if things were even!!! Oh well, that is all part of the fun, SLURP!!!! Needless to say at the end, all of us had to go wash up. The dance ended around 1'ish and everyone returned to there sites and either crashed or stoked up the camp fires. Todd, Diana and Dave chilled out with the 21st'ers. Well Dave kind of cinged his arm hair a little from lighting the camp fire, he was having a little fun with naphtha.... As the night wore on people disappeared into there tents for a good night snooze!

On Sunday morning, sure enough we were again woken by the singing from the church group next to us. After cooking a delicious breakfast of French toast topped with fresh raspberries and syrup we set off for camp closing! We won an award for Volleyball (actually it was a combination of 81st and 21st'ers on the same team.) We also got honorable mentions for the obstacle course too! During the announcements at closing Mom also handed out Snow Moot (Mud Moot) flyers and did a quick spiel about it. Before long camp was declared closed and our site was packed up. It's a sad time when a weekend of fun and sun has come to an end! We were all glad it was just not as hot and humid as it was last year!!!! After checking out we headed out for home. When we left camp we retraced our route back to the highway. When we tried to get on the highway we came to realize that the on ramp to it was closed because of construction.... We could only go West.... So West we went for about 12km were we could get off again then head back home Eastward HO!!!

- Sir Mom


Page last updated 30 August 2000. (c) Thunderbird Rover Scouts.
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