Recent light hike

[glennbad]

Well, more like a walk through the woods.

Our Boy Scout district held a Hike-a-thon, so some of the boys from our troop participated.

The hike was held at Mines Falls Park in Nashua, NH. The park is 325 acres right in the city, and borders the mill areas. There is a 3 mile long canal and mill pond (the fishing is pretty good). The canal was used to bring water for powering the mills back in the day, and it and parts of the millyard are on the National Register of Historic Places.

The terrain is pretty flat, with a ton of trails for biking, hiking and running.

I did not take many pictures, unfortunately:

Me and some of the boys from our troop

Mines Falls Dam

The boys at the Dam

A nice stream that runs through the area

Some type of bird looking for a meal. No zoom lens on the camera, sorry.

Some turtles catching a few rays

I wish I had taken more pics...

Glenn

 

[flnder]

Glenn,your bird is a cormorant

 

[mkhop]

Glennbad I wish you had taken more pictures also, however the ones you took were great.
Boy scouts what a concept.

 

[DaleW]

Glenn,your bird is a cormorant

There's a survival technique-- the Chinese would take a cormorant and put a ring around it's neck with a line. The bird would dive to catch a fish, but couldn't swallow it due to the ring. I assume the birds were tame/trained, but it's an interesting footnote to fishing.

 

[tknife]

Great pics. Some of my best outdoors memories are from when I was in Scouts!

 

[glennbad]

Glenn,your bird is a cormorant

Funny, we had another adult on our hike (2 deep leadership, ya know), and he mentioned it might be a Cormorant...

Thanks for comments, guys.

Glenn

 

[ajcz]

you might want to start having your boys wear thier uniform right. my troop tells them wear it right or dont wear it at all

 

[glennbad]

I hear you on that...

However, this event was a Class B preferred event. Class A was not required, but one scout decided to wear his. I will not discourage that, however, I do agree with you about the proper wear of the uniform.

Scouts are a lot different now as opposed to 20-30 years ago. It was almost a given years ago that a boy was a scout. They wanted to be there, and regualtions were much easier to enforce.

Nowadays, with other activities competing for time against scouting, you're lucky if the kids show up to half the meetings. If you get too hard on them, they will lose interest.

It's sad that it has come to this, and some of the parents are very good and get on the kids, but some consider it a burden on their schedule and are looking for a reason to drop at he first sign of difficulty. The boys sometimes get bored, and the parents give in to them and don't make them go to the meetings and such.

It is a delicate balance...

Glenn

 

[ajcz]

yea it is im 15 a first class scout and i love it but so many people are forced into it by the parents that they dont try or do anything except complain about every thing we do and then they dont input any when we are planning the events then attend and complain when we arent doing anything they like

 

[Munky]

That looks like it was a fun day. I miss being a scout. I really understand both views on the proper wear of the Class A uniform. If it hadnt been for my parents, and a troop change, I wouldnt have stayed in scouts.

 

[Bob W]

Looks like a nice place for casual hiking, gear-checking (remember the Ten Essentials), and letting people new to the outdoors get an easy introduction. For those of us in the Southwest, 235 acres doesn't sound like much. But to a suburban cul-de-sac kid, it's the Great Outdoors.

It's a good thing those kids can outdoors once in a while. With all of the emphasis on awards and regular attention to the BSA's politics, it's sometimes easy to forget what it's supposed to be about in the first place.

Troop hiking and camping trips should really not be in uniform - the unforms aren't designed for physical activities. But if that kid wanted to wear his, he should have tucked it in.

One idea might be to get troop T-shirts. About $3 each at WalMart or Pennys. It'll fulfill the bonding and conformity functions of a uniform, while being suitable for activities. Nothing fancy or expensive, just a T-shirt for each kid, all the same color.

Best Wishes,
-Bob

 

[ajcz]

my troop uses those for when we go to summer camp its 5 diff t shirts all diff colors screen printed with logo and number and location 25 bucks for the set every boy usally buys a set and during the week of summer camp we have a schedule of the days and colors that we wear