Scout Lock In

Brandon and I attended the annual Scout Lock In held at the Linn County Fairgrounds in Albany. This was Brandon's second lock in, my first. Last year I was away at a model train show in Seattle, so Katrina had the honor of escorting Brandon.

We arrived at 7pm ready for an evening of the usual scout activities. Since this was a lock in, we brought our sleeping gear - air mattress, sleeping bags and pillows - all of which were stored in large refridgerator boxes during the activity portion of the evening.

This years theme was The Wild West. There were cowboys strolling the aisles, a jail, the Order of the Arrow teepee, two bounce houses, gold panning, bean bag toss games, button making, bucking barrel rides, crafts, and the usual assortment of scout activities - bb guns, archery, leather craft, knot tying, fly fishing, and other shooting games. Brandon had a blast and even tried a few new things, like riding the barrel. They also served hot dogs, chips and soda for dinner.

At 10:45 the activities closed down and everyone gathered near the stage for some musical entertainment while all the booths were taken down and packed up.

At 11:45 the partitians were opened again revealing one big empty expo hall. Everyone grabbed their bedding and found a spot in the hall. The hall was full of air mattresses, a highly prized item for an expo hall with cold concrete floors.

At midnight the movies began. They played movies all night until 6:30 when it was time to pack up and be gone by 7am. Brandon made it through most of the first movie, Brother Bear, before falling asleep. I watched all of Brother Bear and about half of the second movie, Toy Story 2 before I finally fell asleep. I woke up again as TS2 was ending and ended up watching the first half of The Apple Dumpling Gang before falling asleep again. I woke up as the final movie was starting, The Country Bears. I ended up watching the whole thing, and its not that great.

The lights came on at 6:30. Donuts, fruit and juice were being served but Brandon and I opted to just head home and go back to bed. I slept for another 2 hours. Brandon is still sleeping as I write this, 3 1/2 hours later.