We arrived at about 9:00pm, registered, and went to set up camp. Well, 'camp' being one tent beside Miller's car. Anyway, we found a good spot, and put up the Eureka Base Camp, in which we could each be in seperate time zones.

When we had finished setting up the tent, we were sitting inside reading the camp registration package in the light of the Lawn Boy's headlights, when some friendly Moot staffers came to say 'hi.' The one guy shines his flashlight in on us, and the other guys exclaims, "don't shine your light in their eyes!" It took him quite a while to figure out why we were laughing at him quite so hard (we already had the headlights pointed directly into the tent...)

After Joe and Bob staff members left, we helped the guys at the campsite next to ours start their car because the battery had worn down. They were some interesting guys from Scarborough. See the quote page for more about them :-)

The three of us decided we were very hungry. So, we got into the car and drove to the bustling metropolis of Acton, just a few minutes down the road. Here, we found a Tim Horton's. Yay! Luckily, Heather had also been collecting coupons for free stuff, so we had two bagels and a doughnut between us.

When we finally got to the front of the line, Miller ordered a bagel and coffee. The Tim Horton's worker, we'll call him "Steve," didn't seem to enthusiastic about getting Miller his bagel. Oh well, all was good. Next, Lumberman came up to order. Steve exclaimed, "You don't want a bagel too, do you?!" Well, no, just a doughnut and tea biscuit - and that was difficult enough.  Next, when Heather ordered a bagel with (heaven forbid) cream cheese, the stress was almost too much for Steve. He ended up throwing the bagel at Heather, and causing quite a scene. And it was funny.

When all of this excitement had died down and we had arrived back at camp, we moseyed on over to the casino, where we spent (and lost) no money. However, even after pooling all of our resources (we each were given some fake money in the package) we still didn't have enough to buy anything at the auction afterwards. Oh well. What can you do? We also met up with Melissa, who had come out to camp on her own, and introduced us to Albert Fuchigami's brother, Jason. Soon afterwards, we went to sleep.

The next morning, we awoke to great weather - just the right temperature for camp and sunny skies. At opening, we realised that many of our fellow campers were younger than us, but there were a good number of Rovers at the Moot too. Including our friends from the 6th Rideau Lakes, 18th Kingston, 1st Wilmot, 58th Hamilton and 21st Hamilton.

After opening, it was time for morning events! Miller, Heather and Lumberman decided that they would make a point of doing all of the events, while Melissa decided to make a point of napping in the sun. Anyway, the events were pretty OK - an obsticle course, pin the tail on the donkey (which Miller wrecked for us by not finding the loophole), and an event where you had to identify the Looney Tunes character by their recorded voice. In this last event, Miller redeemed himself by knowing almost every looney tunes short that has ever been produced, so we end up winning that one - Yay!

Lunch consisted of some odds and ends of stuff (whatever we had that we could cook). After lunch, we decided not to do either the car rally or the "group events" where they stuck you in a group with people you didn't know. So, we crossed the road to the main Blue Springs campsite and did our own walking tour. What a beautiful campsite! I guess that's where all of Provincial Council's money goes. And it helps when there isn't a whole lot of kids around (most of the time it is used for Leadership training.) However, what kind of a Scout Camp doesn't have kids all the time?

When we arrived back at our site, Dave and Dan had arrived and set up their tent. Then, off we went to play (or watch) soccer and other fun games. We also spent some time visiting with others and just hanging out. Dinner for Miller, Heather and Lumberman was leftover spaghetti and cold sauce, while Dave had brought steak and perogies for himself and "Newt" as Dan is now called. Oh well, we were happy with what we had (and what we paid for it.)

Eventually, it was time to get ready for the dance, which would be held off site at a community centre. We hung out for a bit, and then realised that the dance was pretty much geared toward a much younger crowd (Nirvana was considered "retro.") So, Miller, Heather and Lumberman took off in the Lawn Boy to see what else there was to do. We stumbled on a place called "Manny's Roadhouse" in Acton, that looked like the only thing that was open. So in we go. "Hey, live band - that must be a good sign" we thought, until we noticed that the band members combined with the staff outnumbered the patrons. Miller asked for beer, and all that was on tap was half a pitcher of Budweiser (see quote page again.)

After a few rousing games of foosball, we decided to head back to camp. With Lumberman driving, we missed the turn off, and ended up driving around in circles for quite a long time. All of a sudden, we realised where we were - Guelph!  Unfortunately, we didn't want to be in Guelph. Oh well. We got back on the highway, and after Miller procured a souvenir from the roadside in Arkell, we made our way back to Blue Springs to go to bed.

Sunday morning we awoke to cool temperatures. Breakfast consisted of whatever was in our food box that we could scrape together, then we packed up our site and got ready to leave. We decided that we couldn't stay for camp closing, because Heather had to get back to Hamilton in time to meet her parents who were coming to get her from Aylmer, her home town. Dave, Dan and Melissa stayed back, and received our event award on our behalf however :-)

All in all, it was a good weekend, and very entertaining. Yeah, we'll probably go again next year.

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Page last updated 19 May 2000.  (c) Thunderbird Rover Scouts.
visits to this page since 30 April 2000.

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