Camp Meriwether 2016

This summer for camp our troop went down to the Oregon Coast to Camp Meriwether.  We left about 9:00am and got there for sign-up at 12:00pm.  We were then directed to the parking where we would wait for our troop guides.  We had three troop guides this year.  They were: Matt, Richard, and Max.  After some delay we got started on our tour.  Our first stop was the life sized replica of Fort Clatsop and some safety talks.  After touring the dining hall, trading post, and other stuff we got down to our campsite and started unloading.  The merit badges I did were archeology, Indian lore, plant science, forestry, nature, and environmental science.  (I finished them all)

When morning came, we all got up to get in our class A's (nice uniform) and sent the waiters to the dining hall.  Eric and I were the waiters throughout the week.  I could talk about merit badges and all that boring stuff, but instead I am going to talk aboutthe HULLABALOO!!!!!!!  Throughout the week troops receive something called Hullabaloo points for picking up trash and other things.  Your troop needed the points so that on the last day you can waste them all on electing a staffer to go into the lake!  It was a big deal.  But the biggest occasion to get 1,000 Hullabaloo Points (alot) was lunchtime.  After lunch the program director would come up and scream at the top of his lungs into a microphone and just about shatter your ear drums.  He would call out campsites to perform their campsite verse/yell.  Although we were the smallest campsite and had a bunch of party poopers, we totally kicked butt.  At the end of the week, here are the staffers who went into the lake (in order of points):  Jake the shotgun director, Mark Spicklemier, Program director Nick, Ash (someone I didn't meet), and CJ of handicrafts.

The week at Camp Meriwether was very fun and exciting, like always.

- Dan

Just this last week the troop took a three hour drive down to the Tillamook area for summer camp at Meriwether.  The drive was quite tedious but we eventually arrived at camp and signed-up.  After waiting a little while we met our troop guides, who took us on a tour and came to our campsite and talked.  We also shared a campsite with two other troops.  They were okay. We also did waitering, so two people went and set tables and so on for every meal.  It went okay the first day.

The next day we went to our merit badges.  Mine were oceanography, rifle shooting, and environmental science.  Oceanography was pretty fun.  We actually went on a pretty cool tidepool hike.  The teacher was pretty likable.  Next was rifle shooting.  It was really fun because of the instructor.  It was quite easy.  Finally, the hardest merit badge was environmental science.  It was also the noisiest.

Everyday at lunchtime we had the Hullabaloo.  This is where you scream and yell alot.  Each campsite had a verse/yell they had to recite.  We were the vikings:

Hearty viking troop are we

searchers of the land and sea

warriors bold we'll always be

We yelled it so loud that my throat began to hurt. One of the activities we did that was most memorable was the movie trivia at stage craft.  Even though it was a low turnout (3 teams), some of the questions we knew and some we were totally clueless on.

 At the end of the week they had the Hullabaloo games.  This is where you run around camp doing different games.  By some weird chance we earned third place!  We were all really surprised!  There was also a staffer dunking.  Five staffers that received the most votes got thrown into the lake.  This was great fun to watch.

That pretty much covers all the interesting stuff at camp.  All in all it was a fun camp.  The staffers were fun,, the food was ok, and the trading post had candy, so it was very fun.

- Joe