Camp Ondessonk

On Mother's day, I was riding back to Champaign on a bus full of boy scouts. Our friends, Denny and Anne Anderson are scout masters of troop 17 from the Lutheran church here in Champaign. Back in December, Anne asked me if I would be willing to chaperone a scout trip they were taking over mother's day weekend because they needed more adults. I excitedly agreed when she told me a little about the trip. This was no ordinary camping trip - we didn't stay in the expected tents. Instead, we slept in tree houses. Yes, tree houses. I mean what else would you call it.


But, the adventure starts before then.
I took Friday afternoon off work so we could get to the church on time to leave for the camping trip. All last week, Bruce had been complaining about his eyes bothering him. After many eye drops, I suggested Bruce go to the eye doctor before we leave for our camping trip to see what the eye doctor can do for him. I walked in the door Friday after work, expecting to pack and leave for our trip. When I asked Bruce how the eye doctor went, he told me that he has cornea ulcers and can't wear contacts for a while. Having only worn contacts for the past 5 years, Bruce didn't have a pair of current glasses. Lens crafters made glasses in an hour, so we were quickly on our way. We also had to pick up a prescription for Bruce's ulcers so we were now crunched for time. We rushed to lens crafters, hurridly picked out some frames and sent them back to have lenses crafted. To our great surprise, they took longer than an hour. We couldn't be too late to the church or we knew we would be left behind. Frantically, Bruce grabbed the glasses when they were finished and flew out the door. He ended up going back to Lens Crafters on Monday when we got back to get them adjusted because they kept sliding off his face. There's nothing like going camping to break in your new glasses.
Either way... before we left for Lens crafters I asked if Bruce had packed our bags. He mentioned that he started to put things in a bag, but didn't consider it actually packed. Since we were crunched on time, we grabbed what was in the bag and left. I knew we were with boy scouts, so they should be prepared with everything that we lacked. To our great horror, we realized that night that we didn't pack our toothbrushes. We didn't want to borrow the boys.' (They may not have even packed them, I didn't see the boys using them.) The small bottle of mouthwash stuffed in our overnight bag was a decent substitute.
We rode on a school bus to the camp ground. However, this isn't an ordinary school bus. It is the new and improved school bus, complete with tables for playing cards.


I found it quite humorous to have a big yellow bus parked at the base of a campground. It was quite a resource - a place to store all of our food away from the pesky raccoons. A huge storm passed through the area just before we got there. They had a down pour of rain and winds up to 100 mph. Many trees were blown down over the freeway, and it only stopped raining about 6 hours before we arrived. Although the camp area was muddy, the weather was perfect considering what it could have been. The wind had stopped blowing, it didn't rain (good thing since our tree houses were only 3 sided), and the sun did poke its way out from behind the clouds. I had a blast. We took the boys out on a 10 mile hike (I don't think we quite made it 10 miles since most of our trail was too muddy and washed out to go through it, but we came close), and had most of the meals cooked for us.
On our hike, we came across an actual waterfall. I didn't know those existed in Illinois.


Due to the large amount of rain we received lately, there was a small waterfall (usually non existent) behind our cabin. It made it hard to sleep at night, but Bruce and the boys sure loved to play in it. Most of you won't be surprised that it was Bruce's idea to play in it first.

For dinner on Saturday night we partcipated in the traditional troop 17 meat on a stick grill out. Throughout the day, the boys carve a meat cooking stick. A slab of raw steak is placed on the stick and cooked over the camp fire. The tradition is to eat your steak directly off your stick. Bruce really got into this, and after his 3rd steak, he finally cooked it to perfection! One of the best steaks he's ever eaten.


We didn't get much sleep, but we had a lot of fun. It was one of the most unique campouts I've ever been on. I also earned my very first scout patch - Camp Ondessonk troop 17 patch. I guess I better get a vest to sew them on.