Liberty District Fall Camporee At Hopkinton State Park

By Justin B-K

The battle of the troops is less than twelve hours away and we are setting up our tents so we could have a good night sleep. We set up our tent right off of a parking lot at Hopkinton Sate Park, our "Home Base" for the weekend. Even though we were supposed to eat beforehand after about an hour into the event everybody said that they were "starving" so we decided to have some crackers and pepperoni, which held us off until breakfast on Saturday.

The patrol leaders woke everyone up at 7:30; one out of the two early mornings we had that weekend. We started out the day with a nice meal of eggs and sausages in a pocket of pita bread. After breakfast and getting our daypacks ready we headed off to a meeting with all the other troops about the day. We were split into two patrols one with Andrew G as the patrol leader and the other headed by me, Justin B-K.

After the meeting was over we set off to our first challenge, picking up trash all along the way. We picked up trash because we got extra points for having the most trash afterwards, and because were boy scouts and like to do good deeds. Our first challenge was the long trail. We actually didn’t finish it because halfway through we thought the trail went left and we did when it really went right.

It wasn’t good that we skipped the first challenge but we made it up by dominating the rest of them. The next challenge was with a series of pulleys attached to trees to lift up a bucket and touch all four corners then the center again. We won first place for that contest. Next was the hot isotope carry, which is when you have an inter tube, rope, and the whole patrol had to get a log out of a circle. We dominated at that too.

The third challenge was one in which we had to build a 10 foot tower with a series of intricate knots. With everyone’s help using an assembly line we put it up in record time. Next we had to make a pressure bridge out of only sticks. The reason it is called a pressure bridge is because it uses pressure of the sticks on themselves to hold it up. We did it in less than 2 minutes another and placed among the leaders. The final contest we did was one in which we had to build a catapult out of a tin can, ropes, and sticks of different lengths. We built it; shot a tennis ball directly onto a bull’s eye and also we got a record length, shooting a tennis ball across the road in the air.

When we got back to "Home Base" we hung out and waited for our comrades to get home. For dinner that night the younger scouts completed their cooking requirements by cooking a great meal. After dinner we were planning to go to the all camporee campfire. Unfortunately we were not able to because it started to downpour heavily. So we just got into our tents, played cards, and told scary stories until we got tired and fell asleep.

Sunday was the other early morning that we had this weekend because we had to get all packed up then go to closing ceremonies. We took our time packing up and cleaning our site. After all the other troops were done we were still nowhere near being finished. Luckily we finished before the closing ceremonies. It seemed that almost every other ribbon was for Troop 63. Those ribbons now adorn the Troop 63 flag.