Scout Camp! Holcomb Valley!

Here are the pictures. 1 week of being with the gremlins. Somehow I survived. and even grew a mustache.
Sorry, I'm not gonna give too many explanations either.

Our troop friend Eric. He looks like a hippy, but he was great. Here's Dorny and his childhood buddy they haven't seen eachother in like 18 years.

Ben and Monty showing us what directors really do. I can't believe the trouble making punk I shared a teepee with 7 years ago is now running the camp. wow.

Morning skits sucked, but they're getting better. horses smell.

The hikes (or mountain bike ride over the might John Bull Trail in our case) overlooked the lucerne valley (mojave desert) but the camp itself had lots of trees and vegetation.

The ace director Chris was a machine. He was really an amazing guy.

There were many many endos on the bikes this week. Even one by yours truly.

Best as I can tell they either fed us zombie meat... or acid burn victim flesh. filthy.

Scouts seemed to like it.

They even put me in a morning skit or two. Here's christian's finished wilderness survival shelter. it was sweet.

We even thatched the roof! The sky was amazing

amazing sky cont'd

Cool lizard with very blue tail we found on our compass course hike. Big Bear lake.

there's gold in them hills. cellphone reception up on top of the peaks.

building the shelter... and climbing

more climbing... and flag ceremony.

looks like these pictures got out of order.

more climbing. they had a pretty wimpy tower so we were glad to find some real rock.

We did an awesome overnighter on the horses! We rode to a campsite and then penned in the horses, unsaddled them, fed them and slept under the stars. There were coyotes in our camp that scared the crap out of us in the middle of the night. They nasty buggars scream and shreak like the devil himself.

We had to learn how to take care of the horses... and ride them for a long time.

Saddling up my horse. Every time I went to tighten the latigo he'd bight me. And you'd think he'd be a little more grateful that i was picking crap out of his feet for him, but no, that was met with more bites as well.

helmets look stupid. the water there was awesome.

the scouts doing their best tough guy look at first and then their thursday tired face.

First arriving... it rained a day or two.

So... did I play a prank on my buddy seeing as how it's his first summer at camp? You betcha. The mountain bikes all had tough guy names like "the General", or "Highlander" or "Barbwire"
So late at night on the last night I went ahead and gave them some new names and blamed it on Igor Hermes!
Here they are...