Rifle and Shotgun Merit Badge

The past saturday my son's boy scout troop went to a merit badge clinic put on by the "Albany Rifle and Pistol Club". This was a district wide event and there were a large number (>80) of boys from around the district. Now the event had both Rifle and Shotgun training with the number of boys split about even between the two events. My son and most of those from his scout troop decided to spend most of the day working on the rifle badge and not worry about shotgun; there was just too many boys to effectively work on both badges. You couldn't do it unless you were a crack shot to begin with and could make the required targets in just a couple of rounds. Since there were so many boys, the organizers had them shoot in shifts of 10-14 boys each. Now they had rifles (22cal) for each boy to use and they handled the safety issues really well. The only cost was for us to provide our own ammo, but this wasn't too much.

This was a really well run event at a great facility. I really appreciated the work of the people from the club who came to help out. Thanks!

My son did not finish his badge (he had a cold and had a hard time concentrating as the day progressed), but he had a great day.

A New Season

No new Scout stiff for awhile, this is the beginning of the season again and besides a Court of Honor that will happen soon nothing much else is happening. The boys will start working on a couple of Merit Badges soon so that will help.

The season starts again...

Boy Scout Summer Camp

Well as much as I wanted to remember to write in here about my son's Boy Scout adventures, I forgot to write about summer camp this year.

This year we went to Camp Baldwin in the Oregon Cascades near mount Hood. Actually it is on the eastern slopes of mount Hood near the small town of Dufer, OR. The one thing that everyone going to this camp will tell you: it is dusty! We went durting the first week of August and spent a full week at the camp.



Camp Baldwin is the one scout camp in this area (State?Region?) that gives the boys the opportunity to earn the Horsemanship merit badge. This was the one reason we went here this year and most of the boys took advantage of the time to earn the badge.

One items to remember. This camp requires the boys/patrols to do their own cooking. You get up at 6:30 in the morning to meet the food truck and pick up supplies for Breakfast and Lunch; then you come back to camp by 4:00 to pick up dinner supplies. Everything is simple and the boys cook their meals together as a group. This can be good or bad take your pick.


I went the first part of the week (including driving the troop trailer up to the camp and having to drive down the massively potholed road to camp to deliver all of our gear). It was a great time and when we picked him up on Saturday he was very dirty, but had a great time.

Hope you like this little blurb about summer camp.

Boy Scout Small Boat Sailing

I thought that I would start to blog about the trips that my son's boy scout troop have been going on. I was an eagle scout and am now an assistant scoutmaster in his troop. It is a great time and gets my son and I closer together, as well as my being able to help other boys learn (my specialty is knots).

This past weekend we travelled to Fern Ridge Res. near Eugene OR. We spent the afternoon working on the Small Boat Sailing merit badge and having some time on the lake. I was a great time.