The Cranston YMCA Healthy Kids Day brings families and communities together to celebrate healthy living with a free, fun-filled day of face painting, Police and Fire Touch a Truck, Community Information and Resources, Health and Fitness demos, music and water safety and more!
For the past two years, Troop 8 has set up a booth to encourage families to join scouting.
Camp Sayre has a lot to offer so Troop 8 will usually make at least one trek to Camp Sayre each year. In the past, we’ve camped at Camp Sayre and then spent the day on the Freedom Trail or hiking the Blue Hills. However, Camp Sayre has many activities onsite such as an indoor pool, crafts center, mammal center, outdoor COPE course, and more. This year, we visited Camp Sayre and took advantage of the activities onsite.
We arrived Friday night to Camp Sayre and we were “upgraded” from our campsite to the Adirondacks. Because of the impending rainstorm, the person checking us in, I’m sure thought he was doing us a favor, however, it was not quite the blessing we expected. Many people used the Adirondack as shelter instead of using a tent. However, for many of them, it turned out to be a bad decision… but who knew at the time.
After dinner, we sat around the campfire until 10pm and then everyone started heading into their tents. As soon as people were in their tents, the sky opened up and down came the torrential rain that was forecasted. Within minutes, those in the Adirondacks realized the roofs leak. For a while, some were able to find cover by moving to different spots in the Adirondack. By 1:00am, those who were in Adirondacks found they were not safe from the leaky roofs. While some tried to pitch tents, others conceded and accepted they were going to get wet. One scout slept through the night and woke up soaked. He slept right through the night and had no idea he was getting rained on.
Despite the rainy evening, Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day. We did a small hike in the morning and then after lunch we spent a couple of hours on the COPE course and then the indoor pool.
It was another memorable Troop 8 camping trip!
For the boys of Troop 8 Cranston, this was the first visit to Camp Norse. The week leading up to our visit had been rainy and warm which caused much of the snow to melt and water to puddle up against a saturated ground. We arrived at the tail end of a heavy rainstorm and had to carry our gear through, what appeared to be small ponds, from the accumulated water.
We had small four cabins that slept 8 each and the boys were assigned to cabins. We had a quick Ramen dinner and everyone settled in until morning. On Saturday, we did a 2-mile hike through the trails in Camp Norse. Many of the boys visited a Cranberry Bog that was either on the camp reservation or right next to it. It was unclear if it was part of Camp Norse. On the hike, we challenged the boys to pick up as much trash as they could find on the hike. The Scoutmaster offered to take over the nightly duties of the person who found the most trash. It was amazing how much “not found in nature” items we collected.
Troop 8 Cranston, RI 