And this was also the first time I helped out at the collection/drop off center.  I was expecting maybe a dozen people who sort the stuff into cans, bottles, boxes.  Wow was I off.  It was an entire gymnasium of a nearby church that was packed with maybe 100 people.  And not just Boy Scouts.  It was Girls Scouts, and even a LaCross team that showed up.  And the sorting was done with milk crates.  As in, this stack of milk crates is peanut butter, this stack is evaporated milk, this stack is spagetti sauce.   

Quite an operation.

Mind you we had a lot of scheduled activities that didn't happen as planned.  For example I wanted to set up a sundial and have the kids track it every hour.  Kinda hard to do that in the rain!!  But we did put on our raincoats and took a hike in the rain.  The orginial trail was a bit short, so I took a longcut.  Is that a word?  Went down the White Trail, then a bit down the Bull Run Occoquan Trail, then finished up on the Bluebell Trail.  The kids saw deer, a toad, algae (in the creek), freshwater clam shells, knocked over trees, trees that made a triangle shape, wooden boardwalks, horse poop, spiders.  All sorts of deep woods goodness for this time of year.  OK, OK so they came back significantly more muddy than when they left.  But it was worth it!  By time we got back from the hike, more families arrived.  The rain was pretty much on for good by then, so they were setting up their tents in the rain.  The campfire was roaring quite well the whole day even in the rain so anyone who was cold did have a place to go.  By evening some folks had steam coming off their clothes when it was heated up by the fire. 

But I digress, the evening meal was 'foil food'  Basically take aluminum foil, a hamburger patty, add chunks of potato, carrots, onion then close it all up in the foil.  Chuck it into the fire for 20 minutes and enjoy.  Matt brought some grilling spice that put salt and pepper to shame.  After the dinner came the desserts: Smores and Campfire Banana Splits.  Of course all the kids wanted to set fire to the marshmallows, and us, ahem, seasoned campers go for the nicely browned marshmallows.

All the night time games, skits, stories I had planned, well, that didn't happen.  The kids pretty much made up their own games to play.  So I said the heck with it, why try to have a 'fun' game when they are having fun all on their own.  OK so a few adults had to make sure nobody ran full speed into the fire or tripped over tent lines.  A plastic cup and a soccer ball let them come up with their own fun. 

Somewhere around 9pm a few of the kids decided on their own that it was time to go to bed.  So most of them crawled into their tents around then.  The adults stood around the campfire trying to remember the words to such songs as Hong Kong Phooey and the Bananna Split Song. 

By next morning, the rain was down to a trickle.  Didn't even need a raincoat.  Then sometime close to 11am, maybe noon, the sun came around to dry up everything.  So everyone broke camp that morning and went home.  Well I couldn't resist the Geocaching.  The Scott's and the Bradley's went and found 3 geocaches.   One of them was a really tiny thing hanging under the boardwalk.  Was fun!

But then storing a wet tent is a recipe for mold smellyness.  Or in my case, two wet tents, a wet shelter, wet plastic sheets, wet tarp  were all things that I had to set up again in my backyard so they would dry.  But dry they did.  Now about that 2 ton pile of rainsoaked wet laundry..... 

Anyway, you know those laser pointers that teachers can use to point at a black board?  These are the same pointers that kids have pointed at airplanes and got in trouble for doing.  Turns out that you can see the beam pretty well at night when pointed skyward,  and all the astronomers were using these pointers as they described star names and constellations.  If you are standing right next to him it is very easy to see what he is pointing at, by following the beam.  Not so easy when you are farther away, turned around or whatnot. 

Was a huge crowd, maybe a hundred people.  But then there were at least a dozen LARGE telescopes.  Watching Jupiter shimmer due to the atmosphere and then suddenly clear up was interesting.   Did I mention there was a powerpoint presentation on the projector screen too?  Sort of a what's happin'in in space today lecture.  Next month they plan on making a man made crater on the moon!  They will be carefully watching the dust cloud and what it is composed of.

Stephanie handed out some forms that detailed what the Cubs can do to earn their Astronmy belt loops, or the Astronomy Pins (if the already have the belt loop)   She found the hand outs at www.MeritBadge.com  Silly me I thought that site was only for Boy Scouts, not Cub Scouts so hadn't looked at it yet.  Good to know.

Ask our Cub scouts how long it takes to drive to the moon, assuming 60 mph. :)

It was quite a nice night!  I sure hope there were some Cub Scouts who found it as memorable as I did!