Troop 54 tent camped at Deer Lake Scout Reservation in Killingworth, CT, our eighth different Scout camp in as many months. We had three Boy Scouts and two leaders participating on this trip.
The camp was busy during the weekend with lots of day visitors participating in an annual fishing derby event that Saturday. We had other plans. During that day, we traveled to Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill, CT. This park has the largest collection of fossilized dinosaur foot prints in North America. It also has science center collections mostly focused on geology. One fun fact from a presentation in the center was that at the time of the dinosaurs, Connecticut was in the location where Puerto Rico is now.
Outdoors, we had lunch at the park's picnic area. Then, we hiked the nature trails, which had informative displays relating the local topography to the geologic formation of the region. The area around the park was fairly swampy, so much of the trail was on board walks. While on the trail, we sought and found a geocache.
Mr. MacNeal had selected an Italian theme for the adult meals. Our first breakfast was eggs poached in a marinara sauce. Dinner was Cavatelli with Sardinian Meat Sauce (pasta in a tomato based sauce with Italian sausage), tossed salad and Italian Bread. The Scouts made Campout Pasta Pizza for dinner with “Dirt” (gummy worms in a crunchy chocolate base); the Dirt did not work out too well. The Scouts noted that this recipe had come from the same cook book as last month's Kielbasa mishap.
We hiked around the camp a bit, noting that it had six camp sites equipped with bunk houses (36 beds per site). This was an impressive camper capacity.
Our newest Boy Scout started work on Totin' Chip at the camp site. The weather during the weekend was cool and windy to start with but warmed up later on Saturday.
This was the troop's 100th consecutive month with at least one overnight camping trip.
Page updated 4/15/17.