Winding Down Whirlwind Week


Note: The author is a Boy Scout from Derby serving as a Valley Indy hometown correspondent for the 2010 National Boy Scout Jamboree.

On Saturday we had a gigantic show in the arena. 

The headline of the show was Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs. 

He told us of his life in scouting and how scouting made him what he is today. Mike Rowe is an Eagle Scout from Maryland. 

The show was three hours long and ended with a hour-long fireworks display which was awesome. The arena was full, with 110,000 spectators. 

There were more than 80,000 scouts and leaders. 

The Chief Scout Executive told the scouts that the next Jamboree will be in 2013 in the new Bechtell Summit in West Virginia. This scout reservation was purchased by the Boy Scouts to host future jamborees and become a high adventure base. We saw a video presentation of the new Summitt. 

After the show we hiked the mile and a half back to camp.

During the week, we participated in so many activities that it is impossible to list them all. 

We had a climbing wall, an action alley that had a confidence course and obstacle course. We were able to use the Army’s repelling walls. There was Scuba diving and snorkeling. 

There is archery, shotgun, black powder, air rifles, and the buckskin games that let scouts rope cattle, brand their hats and walking sticks, use a bull whip to break balloons, and make arrow heads. There is mountain boarding and BMX biking. 

Olympic gold medalist Shawn White will be at the mountain boarding course to meet the scouts. Earlier in the week NASCAR drivers Jeff Gordon and Dale Ernhart, Jr. were in the south region subcamp meeting the scouts. 

Today we had a visit from our Council President Rich Morano, Scout Executive Kevin Bishop, Commissioner Jeff Anderson and Bob Wineck.

Monday morning at the flag raising at Jambo headquarters I had the opportunity to meet with the soldiers of the Old Guard, 3rd US Infantry Caisson Platoon from Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. These are the elite soldiers that conduct all the funerals and burials in Arlington. 

I was able to get my photo taken with one of the soldiers and interview him. A popular area for all the scouts is the Brownsea Island program. Here the scouts play games of the times of the scouting founder, Lord Baden Powell. A lot of guys from our troop spent the day in this area. 

As always, the lines at the trading posts were more than two hours long. 

There is an area called disability awareness where scouts learn how people with disabilities function. 

The scouts do such things as learn sign language for the deaf, play volley ball with one arm, wheel chair bowling, and wheel chair basketball. 

The order of the arrow has an awesome display called the millennium compass, where only the scouts can go in and not the adults. When you come out there are two gigantic water slides. There is a nature trail and and a conservation area run by the US Forestry Service. 

We have cooked some fantastic meals. The days are very active. The morning starts with breakfast. As soon as breakfast is done and we clean up we all go out and do activities. 

Our lunch is available during the day throughout the jamboree so we don’t have to go back to camp and can continue our activities. 

As always, the evening ends with thousands of scouts trading patches along the roadways throughout the entire jamboree. The scouts set up along the roads with their patches laid out on blankets and trade for hours.

It’s hard to believe that the ten days have gone by so quickly. Tuesday is our last full day here at Fort AP Hill. 

We will be breaking down camp and getting ready to load the buses for home on Wednesday. 

We will sleep under the stars Tuesday night. 

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