=============================== DAY ONE ===============================
Last week we went on a two-night camp out to Gaviota State Park (Click the link to learn more!) and had a lot of fun. We cooked good food, had fun at the beach, and hiked to a cave. When we first got there, we put up the tents and unloaded our gear off the trucks. Right away we all wanted to go to the beach so we put on our swimsuits and left the campsite to go have some fun in the sun. When we got there, we saw that the beach was covered in black clumps of goo! If you looked out in the distance you would have seen several oil rigs out in the water. The oil rigs had a leak, and black, sticky tar was washing up on shore. we all stepped in it or got it on us in some way. I got it on my hands. we had lots of fun in the cold pacific ocean and even made our own game! we would wait until just before a big wave formed and when it got to us we jumped into the air, over the wave. we called it wave jumping. we weren't always successful though. sometimes we would jump but the wave would be too big and we would get soaked and as the wave pushed us toward shore, we stepped on lots and lots of rocks. when we finally got back to camp, we were so cold that we wanted to start the campfire before we had even had dinner! luckily, we dried off fairly quickly. That night, for dinner we had "The Giant Barf." The Giant Barf is multicolored noodles with meat sauce. We also made dutch oven pineapple upside down cake! After dinner, we started a good campfire and shared stories and went to bed.
=============================== DAY TWO ===============================
On the second day, we woke up and made our camp meals. Most of us brought a freeze dried food packet but one of the scouts brought pancake mix! After that, We went on a hike to a cave. It was about 3 miles there and back. Scattered along the trail were some licorice plants. We all enjoyed breaking off part of the stem and nibbling on it to get the licorice flavor out. When we got to the cave we went into it, and it was pretty small. all you could really do was sit. it was really more of an over head outcropping of rock than a cave. we started to go down the trail, but as we did, we saw another cave that you can go in. this one had a bunch of tunnels and "windows" so it was well lit. we found a small section that you had to crawl through and we stopped there to take a picture. When we got back to camp, we all wanted to go back to the beach so we got our swim suits on, and played in the waves. we had fun wave jumping but got too cold. we found a small, shallow area of the beach with some water in it. the sand was so crazy. If you stepped into certain spots, you would start rapidly sinking a few inches and then it would stop. we had lots of fun finding these spots and even tried to sit in them. When we got back to camp we sat around, burning each other with magnifying glasses. We made lunch after some debate as to who would do it, but finally, I stood up, and started heating up the giant can of nacho cheese. we had tortilla chips dipped in re fried beans with nacho cheese. It was delicious. after lunch, we went to the camp store and got ice cream. Later that day, we started to cook dinner. At the beach that day, some of the leaders helped a commercial fisherman bring in his boat and in thanks, he gave us six fillets of fresh rock fish. It was the best fish I have ever eaten. We also made steak with corn on the cob and some canned beans. I stuck with the fish and beans. There was also a bag of cool ranch Doritos. We started with a full bag but after about an hour, the whole bag was empty. For dessert we made monkey bread (puff pastry dough with nuts and raisins). We played some wiffle ball after dinner and that night, the wind was blowing so hard, we thought the rainfly of the tent would get unstaked and just blow away. Standing around the campfire, I began to tell a story. "You are all alone, walking down the highway when you see a glowing pair of yellow eyes. Maybe its a car that can drive you to safety. as you get closer, the eyes get bigger. you keep walking, but when you reach the yellow eyes, there is nothing there! you walk behind them, NOTHING. you walk through them, STILL NOTHING. finally you call out "HELLO? IS ANY BODY THERE?" but there is no response." Now before I tell you the last part, I should say, our troop recently acquired a flyswatter gun. you pull it back and when you pull the trigger, two flyswatters smack together. Now back to the story. "you decide to keep walking but the eyes follow you. you scream "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" Then BAM! I got to this part of the story and used the flyswatter to grab one of the other scouts. He screamed so loudly. we all thought it was a great ghost story. we went to bed and rested for the final morning of the camp out.
============================== DAY THREE ==============================
When we woke up on day three, we were all ready to start the day. we cleaned up the camp, had pancakes and sausage for breakfast and then cleaned up the cooking things. we slowly and carefully loaded the truck, put the net on and were ready to go. Before we packed up the stuff though, we had one last thing to do. we went to the beach, found some footprints (dog, duck, and scoutmaster) and made plaster casts of footprints. We also walked down the beach and found tide pools and the weirdest rock formation ever. It looked as though a meteor had come down and hit the rocks! we even threw some rocks at it, and it sounded kind of hollow! after exploring this, we went back to the camp, finished packing the gear, got in the car, and left.
We had a lot of fun on our campout. we ate good food, played fun games, explored nature, and ate lots of pudding cups. It was my first time camping in California, and it was great. See you next time, and have fun scouting!
