Wandering through the past, part 3

Having recovered from the sight of that ridiculous water slide and enjoyed some memories of the glorious canoe tug-of-war battles on Friday afternoons before departing on Saturdays, I headed back up the trail to check out some other areas.

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I wandered down the trail toward two of the campsites we most frequently occupied - Boone's Place and Raccoon Hollow (if you think those are bad, wait until you hear names for some of the other campsites). First thing I came across was this building, another change from the 25 or so years earlier.

According to the gentleman I had spoken with at the gate, this is the ecology center. This is where they teach the various nature and science-related merit badges. Pretty fancy, huh? Back in my day, we took those classes in shelters similar to the one in part 1.

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From there, I headed on down to the chapel. It's another quiet place, out on a point, surrounded by the lake. I sat for several minutes just thinking about memories from the times at camp - and life in general.

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I didn't get a very good picture of the area because it was overgrown after so many years. We used to go fishing down at the bottom of the hill where the chapel is located.

On one particular week, we had seen a snake swimming in the water right off the shore. The next day, my brother, another member of our troop and I are down there fishing. Somehow, the friend we were with slips and falls into the lake. I reach out to help him back up on the shore - and he manages to pull me in, headfirst flying over the top of him. Everyone is laughing - until we all remember the snake.

Instant panic. Both of us scrambling to get out of the water, our feet sinking in the soft, red mud as my brother stands on the shore, laughing his ass off. When we finally get out of the water, we're soaked and covered from the waist down in red mud. Needless to say, fishing was done for that day - and the rest of that week, as I recall.

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From the chapel, I headed back up the trail and stopped at Boone's Place (pictured above). When troops arrived on Sunday afternoon, they unloaded and moved into their temporary homes - campsites set up in various parts of the property. Each "troop" site included three "patrol" sites and a "leaders" site. Each of those sites had four or five tents set up with wooden pallets as "floors" and metal cots with mattresses. You brought your own sleeping bag, sheets, pillow, etc., and lived there for the week. You can see some of the pallets in the picture above. I'm not sure why they would have been left out in the off-season.

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In the campsites, these were new. I didn't figure out why these were added - at first.

Then I noticed the "new" sinks were built as part of these - showers in each campsite. Pretty fancy, huh? When I camped here, there were community showers located back past the commissary/trading post. Those had been done away with, apparently, in favor of shower stalls like these in each campsite.

No, back in the day, you used this trough at your campsite latrine to brush your teeth, wash your hands, etc.

Having a door on the section where the pit toilets were located was new - or maybe my memory just was bad. If you've never used a pit toilet before, you've missed out, especially in the summertime. One thing you made absolutely sure of was that there were no spiders/webs in close vicinity of the seat before you took care of your business. Whatever happened, you did not want to go to the first aid building for a spider bite on your ass.

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Signs like this keep you headed in the right direction. I didn't have time to wander through Raccoon Hollow as the sunlight was fading, and I had more things to see.

To be continued ...