Memorial Weekend camping trip
I had a great Memorial Weekend camping trip with the cub scout pack this weekend. Hard to believe it's my last already. Peter is in 4th grade and he'll be a Boy Scout next year. Over the 4 years I've led these trips, I've fine tuned them so that they keep getting better and better.
This one had one odd thing though -- we were storing the garbage in the bathroom because we have to pack out the trash and we didn't want an animal to get into it. Someone pooped on top of one of the trash bags. It was clearly human poop. Not a situation you receive training on how to handle.
Once I learned of the problem, I had everyone stop what they were doing, and I gave them 15 minutes to get the poop cleaned up. I asked whoever did that to take home all the trash (instead of just one bag per family as the original plan.)
I let 30 minutes pass and the poop was still there, so I gathered the kids, told them the poop was still there, and said that dessert (which was already set out and nearly ready to be eaten) would be canceled unless someone cleaned up the poop. I was fully prepared to follow through on that. The cleaner didn't have to be the person who did the poop, but it needed to be cleaned up.
Amber volunteered to clean it up, and shortly after she did, then 2 of the older boys (who were on my top 3 list of most likely culprits) volunteered to help her. The kids got it cleaned up and washed their hands well with soap, and we double-bagged the trash.
Still, I'm pretty grossed out. I can't believe someone would do that. It was just our group in the area; there's basically no chance a stranger could have done it. It would have had to have been a weirdo living in the woods, sneak up to the bathroom with no one noticing, poop, and leave again without having walked through camp.
Other than that, it went really well. My brother gave me some pointers to some good Memorial day readings, and we let the kids share stories of soldiers they've known.
Other than being totally exhausted, I'm pretty proud of how the trip went.
--Beth
This one had one odd thing though -- we were storing the garbage in the bathroom because we have to pack out the trash and we didn't want an animal to get into it. Someone pooped on top of one of the trash bags. It was clearly human poop. Not a situation you receive training on how to handle.
Once I learned of the problem, I had everyone stop what they were doing, and I gave them 15 minutes to get the poop cleaned up. I asked whoever did that to take home all the trash (instead of just one bag per family as the original plan.)
I let 30 minutes pass and the poop was still there, so I gathered the kids, told them the poop was still there, and said that dessert (which was already set out and nearly ready to be eaten) would be canceled unless someone cleaned up the poop. I was fully prepared to follow through on that. The cleaner didn't have to be the person who did the poop, but it needed to be cleaned up.
Amber volunteered to clean it up, and shortly after she did, then 2 of the older boys (who were on my top 3 list of most likely culprits) volunteered to help her. The kids got it cleaned up and washed their hands well with soap, and we double-bagged the trash.
Still, I'm pretty grossed out. I can't believe someone would do that. It was just our group in the area; there's basically no chance a stranger could have done it. It would have had to have been a weirdo living in the woods, sneak up to the bathroom with no one noticing, poop, and leave again without having walked through camp.
Other than that, it went really well. My brother gave me some pointers to some good Memorial day readings, and we let the kids share stories of soldiers they've known.
Other than being totally exhausted, I'm pretty proud of how the trip went.
--Beth