Philmont Journal

Philmont Journal Day 2
October 19, 2008.

Had a 6:00 am wake up. got dressed, had a quick small bite to eat to hold us over until we had a full breakfeast a little was down the road. We had everything loaded and departed the house around 7:15 am. We head down to the colorado springs and then ended up eating a a place called the Cracker Barrel which is a country based breakfeast place. It ended up being a very good meal. Had lots of people approach us making very positive about the scouts or themselves being involved in the scouting program because we had on full uniform shirts. After that we drove to Trinidad, Colorado where we stopped at a walmart to pickup a few more last minute supplies for the trip and to go the the restroom. After that we loaded back into the vehicles and drove to the welcome to New Mexico sign were we took a few minutes to take a group photograph. Next we drove to Cimmaron, New Mexico and had lunch at a place called Hecks, I had no problem with the food since the food was very similar to the standard of food that you expect from a small town which is exactly like the food quality from where i live. I had a cheeseburger and then we loaded back into the vehicles to drive 5 minutes outside of town to Philmont Scout Ranch where we went to the check in center to check in. Once we arrived at the check in center I realized that I forgot my health form since my was not with the rest of the groups since I came at the last minute. Mr. Speights who is one of the adult leaders of the group got a hold of his wife and got the health form faxed down. Thank's Mrs. Speights for saving the trip, it is amazing what people are willing to do for certain organizations. After the adults determined the route we met with our guide who was Eddy. We distributed meals and the crew gear that philmont would be providing to us. We also had a final gear shakedown with our philmont guide to make sure we had everything we needed. We identified a few missing items that needed to be bought at the trading post. The guide left us at basecamp to spend a night in canvas tents with cots. After doing some final preparations we had a religious service. The religious service was a jewsih service which was very interesting learning about some of the customs of the service. This service was put on by one of our adult leaders Mr. Benzel. We then hiked 5 miles back into town which took until 7:30 pm to have dinner since philmont was not providing dinner that night. This time instead of going to Hecks we went to C&C which is a mexican place where the waitress ended up being overwhelmed with such a large group so late at night but that did not matter to us since we had all the time in the world. By close 9:00 we had finished dinner and ended up getting ready to leave. Instead of hiking back we took a car which one of the leaders brought just in case it was too dark and dangerous to walk back. We got back to camp brush our teeth and had taps at 10 pm.

Yours in Scouting Service
Mark W
Junior Assistant Scoutmaster
Troop 1616