During July, Troop 150 went back for another exciting week at Goshen Scout Reservation located around Lake Merriweather in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. In Goshen there are six different camps, the Troop stayed at Camp Bowman. During this experience, Scouts had the opportunity to earn multiple merit badges and requirements, plus have lots of fun.
One of the activities that we got to do as a troop was our astronomy hike. One night we hiked out to a hill near the camp and sat out there for a bit watching the stars. Another activity we got to do was the camp-wide opening campfire. The first night at camp all of the troops were invited to attend a campfire being put on by the staff. All of the staff had different skits and songs prepared for us.
During the day Scouts got to go to their own activities but every day there was time during the day for Scouts to relax, work on requirements, make lunch, and make campsite improvements. The campsite improvements helped us get a better camp score each day. Some common improvements were a trash bag holder, a water pail holder, and a weather rock. The score was also influenced by how tidy your campsite was and most importantly, no trash. You wanted to get a good score because if you had the best score for the day, you got an award called the “Honor Oar”, and if you got the best scores for the entire week, you got “Troop of the Week” and you got to decorate an oar they hang up however you want. During this trip, the troop worked a lot on making sure we had a good campsite for inspection. On Wednesday the leaders helped by repainting our latrine doors. This along with the work of the troop got us a troop record of 60/50 on inspection. This won us the Honor Oar and Troop of the Week for the second year in a row!
Unfortunately, halfway through the week, there was a Covid outbreak among the staff. Luckily none of the campers got it as the staff were all masked, but Camp Bowman had to be shut down, ending our week early. The night before the troop left, we were able to take all of the wood we had gathered for the week and pile it together to make an amazing fire just for the troop. Each patrol had their own skit to perform.
Even though it got cut short the entire troop had a lot of fun
and it was a great experience for everyone.
