Scout Trip Departure Day

Its 4 o’clock in the morning, actually a little late for me to be rising out of bed, but time alas to start getting ready for a trip that has been in the works for almost 2 years. Its departure day today, the day where I load 8 BSA scouts into a passenger van and drive them up to northern Maine for a week on canoes in the back country. Not all the driving will be done today, but the majority of it, with a layover near Acadia National Park for the night before we wake up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to drive another 3 hours to the base camp, arriving there by around 8 AM. This wasn’t just my idea, although I did give the scouts a few options, but it was the them, the scouts between the ages of 12 and 15, that made the decision to make this trip happen. Discussion of which trip to do started almost 2 years ago with the actual planning portion starting about 9 months ago in the fall of 2025. Since then, I have been at the grind working to get all the necessary paperwork done, medical forms, swim test forms, CPR and Wilderness First Aid forms for adult leaders, not to mention collecting payments, and communicating with the base camp. But the scouts are the ones who are doing the real work, getting themselves ready through team building exercises, orienteering hikes, day long canoe trips to practice their paddling a t-flips, and of course, having fun.

The scouts are all excited, their gear is packed, pored over multiple times to ensure we have what we need, and I must say, I am personally impressed with the progress they have made over the past 9 months to get to this point. Now its about time to put it all into practice. They are ready, but I know their mom’s are not. In this age of constant contact and being able to call someone whenever you want, their biggest struggle I feel is not being able to reach out to their sons with a quick phone call or text to see how things are going. There is no cell service where we are going, a 2 way radio for emergency purposes only being our only form of contact with the outside world. So while its an adventure for the scouts, it will also be an experience in letting go for their moms. I think this trip will do everyone some form of good, in whatever form it may come. I’m confident we are prepared and ready for anything that comes our way, lets just hope it doesn’t rain all week. But if it does, we’ve got the gear for that as well. I know I’ll be telling myself to enjoy every minute, even if its every minute of rain we get!

As for me, I have one stressor going into this trip, and that is my son who has Type 1 diabetes. That means he is insulin dependent and requires constant insulin delivered throughout the day to survive. It is generally well managed at home, the current technology allowing him to control his insulin in a pod attached to his arm from his phone, and a sensor communicating with the phone to either increase or decrease insulin based on his blood sugar levels. My stressor is maintaining a charge on his phone throughout the week. We have multiple battery packs that we can utilize to keep it going, along with solar chargers for them as long as the sun comes out. And if all the technology fails, we go back to insulin shots which we haven’t had to use in close to a decade now. So outside of having a blast, I will be just a little worried every day for my son and ensuring I bring him back in one piece (which I am confident I can do.)

As for writing here, I obviously won’t be able to do that, but I did schedule a post for each morning with some pictures from previous family trips that I have taken along with speculation on my part on what the day will bring. It all starts tomorrow with leaving at 5 AM from campsite to head even farther north. It will be a great trip, one that I hope the scouts will remember for a lifetime, and I’m sure the adults going will as well. And lastly, if your reading this from a link on FB, it won’t be posted there for the coming week, so your best bet is to subscribe to the blog and you’ll get the posts in your email inbox every morning. Oh, and the most exciting part for me is that after driving home next Sunday, I have one day at home before driving back up to Acadia with just my family and our camper for a week exploring a National Park. Can’t wait for that either. A couple weeks of fun are ahead of me, though I think the second will be more relaxing once I know we are all safe and sound from our scout trip to northern Maine. Till then, be good and do something nice for someone else, pay it forward.