I'm back from a Cub Scouts campout, which I went to without Alex. I think the signs are pointing to Alex quitting Cub Scouts as soon as he's done with Webelos, which I will be leading this year by the way, which may be the only reason he's staying in now. He seriously did not want to go. Anyway, we did learn a few things from last year, most significantly don't invite new Tiger Cubs on the campout, and we had a new leader volunteer from one of the packs in Columbia City. She helped out a lot, taught dutch oven cooking, and is going to lead the wolves this year, which is awesome. We met at the school Saturday morning and headed out to Chain O' Lakes State Park. They have a youth tent area which is way way way out away from everything. We got there and someone else was set up on the site we had reserved, but we were able to switch sites. We had a simple lunch after getting everyone all set up (it was a good turnout, maybe 10 or 12 tents altogether, around 24 people). After lunch, we went on a hike to the beach. The beach was very nice, because it had gotten pretty hot on the hike. It was sunny, hot, hazy, humid. We had sent a load of swimsuits and towels forward and everyone was ready for the beach by the time we got there. However while we were there it clouded up, the temperature dropped by 15 degrees, and a fairly heavy rain started. We got everyone packed up in a hurry and shuttled them back to the campsite instead of hiking back like planned. But anyway, it was already time to start prepping for dinner by the time everyone got back, and the rain stopped and it warmed back up again.We did tinfoil dinners, with a big assembly line process for the meat and veggies and such, while Krystal was teaching the kids how to cook desserts in the dutch ovens. I also learned that you always need more charcoal than you think, and you should get the kind with the lighter fluid already in it, because I had a hard time getting the charcoal to light and get hot enough to use. But someone had brought an air mattress pump, so I used it like an air blower to get the charcoal going, and that worked brilliantly. Jim had to run out to get more because 24 tinfoil dinners takes a long time to get through on a too-small pile of charcoal. We also left out the ketchup this time. However, they came out great once they were cooked. Several that were on the edges had go back on for a while because the meat wasn't done. After dinner and free time we had a campfire with a bunch of songs and skits that everyone took part in, until bedtime. For the most part, everyone was in their tent by 9 or 10. We made baggie omelets in the morning for breakfast, then pretty much just packed up. We had planned to lead the scouts on a geocaching expedition, but unfortunately there weren't any near the campground, so rather than a large hike or shuttle we dropped it from the schedule. However, once everyone was heading home I went out by myself and claimed a couple of earthcaches in the park.