Who Let The Woodpecker Into Camp Part Two, The Frostbite Edition

Some of you may remember two years ago when I wrote:

It was still dark when I awoke last Saturday morning, wondering who let the woodpecker into the camp grounds. I was unaware that woodpeckers were nocturnal and lived in the cold. Then I realized that the sound I was hearing was my teeth chattering because I was freezing! I didn’t actually sleep last Friday night. I shivered through a light doze, listening to the gentle lapping of water as it hit the banks of the tiny peninsula that we camped on called “Scout Island.” I listened to the sound of the wind whip through my tent because I was sleeping in a strange tent that I had to set up in the dark which meant that I didn’t know there were two mesh windows on either end of the tent, one of which I set up into the wind. I didn’t realize that I failed to cover the mesh windows with the rain fly, which I attached sideways. My house for the night was a small nylon Coleman wind tunnel. Add to that the fact that I was sandwiched between the tents of two other dads who left chainsaws running in their tents all night, my answer to the most frequently asked question on Saturday morning, “How did you sleep last night?” was “The coffee better be good!”

Guess what? We’re going back there tonight. I’m almost as excited as I was on that very first Boy Scout camp-out. And at last night’s planning meeting, our Scout Master casually mentioned that there were scouts he would not allow to come on this trip. Why? Well, because the weather forecast calls for a high of 23 degrees and a low of 10 degrees. At least that is +10 degrees. I guess there are scouts that he doesn’t trust to prepare for dangerously cold camping temperatures. I suppose I should be proud that I am the father of one of the responsible ones, but if General Mayhem was a dirt bag I could be spending the weekend in a warm house in front of a brand new large screen TV.

When I thaw out on Sunday I’ll fill in the details.

Have a good weekend!