We went out to the Boy Scout camping area (a 45 minute drive) because
Bug Row
The reason for the latter was that Corwin wanted to plead to be taken home, although he only asked a couple of times in a despairing voice, correctly anticipating the denial of his request. The troop had already lost two boys — I need to ask Uncle Evil if that was a normal loss rate from his day, since I wasn’t a Boy Scout myself. I didn’t even consider letting Corwin come home given the near perfect weather. Corwin’s main problem is not liking the bugs, which were extra pesky this year because the tents in use didn’t have connected bottoms so there was no way to seal off the great outdoors. The kids all had to have mosquito nets, and we got Corwin the wrong kind (“there are kinds?”) because he didn’t pay enough attention to point out the right kind. A personal growth experience, that is.
On the other hand, Corwin did seem to be enjoying the activities during the day. He’ll make some good progress on some merit badges, which is good. He was going to work on his Tenderfoot rank, but it turns out he’s so close that he was set to work on 2nd class instead.
Because of the conference swim meet on Saturday, Corwin will escape the last night of camping with bugs and get to sleep in his own bed, although he’s going to shower very thoroughly before that, no matter how tired he is.
While torturing Corwin with the thought of how close yet inaccessible escape was for him, Alice and Charles had some fun as Corwin showed us around the camp in his glum yet resigned manner. Mom pointed out poison ivy and poison oak, which we fortunately seemed to have avoided. I noted that Charles’ penchant for wearing long pants and sleeves even in the heat of summer paid off for once. although Charles admitted that he was sweating (apparently rare enough to be worth specifically remarking on). Naturally, while Alice was flouncing around in a short dress, spaghetti strap dress with sandles, it was Charles who ended up with a tick on his leg. It was just below the knee on the inside, which I found impressive for the tick. Such pride didn’t stop me from taking it off Charles and disposing of it. Charles was very cooperative and patient with me as I gathered my equipment and read up on tick removal on the Internet. I got it off without leaving the head behind. I made Charles take a bath afterwards to verify that there was only one, although Charles remained a bit more phobic than usual about bugs post bath.