This is our last full day in camp.

The movie camera was sent with Brad this morning to film members of our Troop scaling the climbing tower. It has become quite the ordeal of passage among the scouts; the current record is a 21 second accent by Trevor.

Will completed the Mile Swim this morning one of only 4 in the entire camp who stuck it out the entire week. Congratulations!

All the merit badges that were intended to be completed by the Scouts have been completed. In addition Spencer completed his First Class advancement including Board of Review. It has been a great week where our scouts have experienced more scouting than they would have in an entire year of meetings and weekend camp outs.

Michael W, the Dan'l Boone of our Troop had to go home this evening to leave on family vacation. We hated to see this happen since it will affect his OA election eligilibility until 2005. Troop 39 Spencer, whose parents had originally planned to pick him up tonight decided to wait until early Saturday morning allowing him to complete the complete 6 nights stay.

Aaron completed his Bird Watching MB yesterday, and then promptly evicted a wren that was in the process of building a nest on top of TJ's sleeping bag. This wren had been very busy and had tried to build a nest in a wal-mart bag of clothes behind Michaels tent the previous day!

After constant requests from the campsite inspectors, members of Troop 39 decided to build a camp gadget. Their choice... a swing!

Tonight at awards assembly, Tony from Troop 9 was presented with the camp-wide character counts award which was quite an honor.

After the assembly, the Troop OA members once again headed for the OA ceremonies to show their support for the new members that had completed their Ordeal that day. It was a good ceremony and a chance to reinforce the idea that we are all members of the same organization no matter where we live.

On return to camp, Dan was dismayed to find that there was no campfire on this the last night in camp. This heresy and his incessant obsessing on how "un-scouty" it was, turned into a recurring theme that somehow became entwined with blinding flashes from a camera, and threats of being duct-taped into a chair. Before the night was over more than one person's sides and stomach were sore from laughing and the discomfort remained all through the next morning.