6:00 a.m. seemed like a normal time to wake up and it took very little encouragement from the adults and SPL to get everyone up. There was a whole pile of scouts and adults ready to participate in the "polar bear" swim, which required swimming the length of the pool and then hugging a block of ice before heading back to camp.

We also had 4 camp members sign up for the mile swim, however two of them (the "Old Guys" as the thunderbolt patrol refer to them) dropped out after this first session. Time marches on and as they were painfully made aware, the future belongs to the 12 year olds.

Shower facilities are quite different from Arrowhead in that there is warm/hot water available. However something about it seemed "unnatural" to at least one adult member who will switch back to the cold water shower available in camp for the rest of the week!

Breakfast was more than adequate and the cafeteria style of serving at least insures that all campers get equal portions of food. Each campsite takes turns being first in line because the dining hall cannot hold everyone at once. The kitchen crew did a good job of keeping the salad bar filled and aside from running out of utensils a couple of times there were no complaints.

Three of the Troop 9 members and one of the Troop 39 members signed up for the Basketball competition which will run for the next three days with championship on Thursday night. The strategy for Andy, Mike, Trevor, and Austin appears to be, '...get the ball to the little guys and let them keep ahead of the other team'. It appears it just might work! Not only do their short legs move in a fast blur, they are hard to reach because they are so short! The first game is tonight we'll see how it goes!

While all the scouts headed out to classes the adults (six of them) spent the morning relaxing in camp, talking and trying to identify needs and goals that will benefit the boys and troop in the coming week. For many of the adults this week would be a chance to re-charge from all the hectic activities of daily life. It could all be summed up in a single sentence heard just before boys headed back into camp ".. good shade, good chairs, good conversation, good friends..". It was shaping up to be a great week.

All the Scouts returned prior to lunch, each carrying their blue merit badge cards. It seems that the camp director and the individual class instructors were of different opinion as to the importance of the cards. Oh, well..

Once again we exited lunch into a scene of ice cream and candy depravity that was reminiscent of Rome at its lowest. Already some scouts are running out of money, (with ice cream at $2.50 per pint it can't last much longer!) the challenge will be to make sure they keep enough to purchase kits and supplies needed to complete their requirements for shooting sports and other MB class kits.

The morning saw the emergence of several sharpshooters in our campsite. Michael W. and Alex are doing tremendous in the rifle MB class! Those scouts taking environmental science MB came back to camp and marked off their observation plots. They will be able to sit in a chair all this week and actually justify it as part of their MB class! One of the adults, noting that some of the plots had little activity, made sure to tap-dance across the plots just to make sure that there was at least one entry for their observation log. "... dancing mammal crossed area.."

The "Little Green Frog" appears to be the unofficial camp song, but they don't have many of the more "imaginative" verses. Tonight as we waited outside the dining hall, Austin W. got up in front of the camp and sang the other Troop 9 / Arrowhead verses: "Oh we all know frogs go POP in the Microwave.." and the ".. whiz in the blender.." verses. They went over well with the camp!

We also passed out our new Troop T-shirts. Tomorrow will be Troop T-shirt day. This years shirts have an old Baden Powell "Tommy the Tenderfoot" drawing on them.

After supper most all of the camp went up to cheer on our basketball team, but it turns out that the competition doesn't start until tomorrow, so many went down for free-swim. What a mass of bodies it was there! The pool is smaller than Arrowhead, and the Blue swimming area was marked off for diving from the board only, so almost the entire camp was squeezed into the Red swimming area. Several of our boys had to retreat to the white zone just to avoid being elbowed in the nose and eye repeatedly, but at least the water was cool.

As dark settled in the first of many games of spoons started up. It was great to see how the two troops came together with members from both troops helping out the other team as players were needed. As the week progressed this separation of troops within our campsite would be blurred beyond recognition.

After lights out, our camp was visited by a family of Raccoons as well as the original first night visitor. In the words of one of Tony, one of our Troop 9 scouts "...it's a GREAT day to be a Scout!"