Well, our troop just went to one of the biggest scouting events of all: the 100th Anniversary Jamboree in California. Brother Spencer, Brother Jackson, Brother Bruschke, Brother Kukuk, Brother Burrill, Brother Wilhelmsen, Ryan, Dewlin, Dallin, Jeremy, Tay, Brandon, Teddy and I met at the church on Friday (April 16th) with the 11-year-old scouts (Dallin Bruschke, Spencer Patterson, Andrew Burrill, Weston Nearon, Jared Robins, and Matthew Bertha). Once we had everybody, we hauled our stuff into Brother Jackson's truck.
We drove down to the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, which took us about 20 minutes to get to. Once we got there, you wouldn't guess how many scout troops were there! No matter where you looked, you'd see millions of tents.
Anyway, we hauled our stuff out at our campsite and the guys on dinner duty started making sloppy joes for dinner, while the other guys set up the tarps, tents, and chairs.
It turns out, Brother Spencer had brought a jicama (pronounced: hick-uh-muh) along in the cooler.
We chopped it up and ate it with veggie dip. It turns out, it tastes really sweet!
Then, you guessed it, we ate dinner.
So, then we washed dishes (or Dallin Earl and I did), and then we walked over to the Amphitheater for a skit show thing.
And in this place, it was pretty "hard" to find the bathrooms.
We then watched the skits at the show.
And for some reason, a guy in a banana suit kept running around, and around, and around.
After the skit show and a spiritual meeting with the troops in our stake, we walked back to our campsite and we got into our tents.
Or at least not me, Dallin, Jeremy, Spencer and Dewlin. We slept under the stars. The good thing was that it didn't get cold like at Pinnacles.
The next morning we woke up and the guys on breakfast duty started making pancakes, eggs and bacon.
And when the fog cleared up, you could really tell we weren't far from civilization.
Sister Rosdahl came to pick up Dewlin to take him to his lacrosse game. Soon afterwards, Randall arrived, then Kyle M., and then Jaren.
After cleaning up breakfast, and hauling our stuff into the truck, Rick had arrived, and we were given these trading cards. The cards each had a word from the Scout Law, and we were supposed to trade with other people to try to get all of the Scout Law. And each troop started will all of one kind of cards, so our troop started with all "Kind" cards.
Oh yeah, Dallin and Brother Kukuk were whipping each other with a hand towel, so Dallin had a lot of "whip marks" on his legs.
We also got these maps of the fairgrounds:
We walked over to the Green Gate and split up into groups. I went with Brother Spencer, Randall, Rick, Teddy, and Spencer.
It was hard to find stuff to do, since there were long lines for just about everything. Every once in a while, kids from other troops would swarm us and try to trade with us. Spencer got the rare "Baden-Powell" card from another kid.
We eventually found the Orienteering thing.
Basically what you would do is you'd have a little stick thing on your finger, and you would run through certain courses and stick the stick into certain little machine things. When you're done, you go back and see how much time it took you. Teddy and I nearly beat the record of 30 seconds. We got 44.6 seconds.
After that, we really had nothing else to do, so we got our picture taken with these guys.
We found a nice grassy area to sit in, and we planned out stuff we could do after lunch.
When lunch came, we checked if there was a long line for lunch...........and there was. I did see some of the Russian guys from Advance Camp though.
So we checked out the BMX Track to see if it was any good.
Apparently, the highest jump was about 3 feet, so we didn't want any part in it.
The next thing on the list was the Mountain Man Village. It was pretty cool because it had exact replicas of old tents and teepees, and they had arrowheads, furs, and Boy Scout artifacts from the 50th Anniversary in 1960.
We found everybody else on the other side of the village. Rick and Jaren had to go, and Randall and Brother Kukuk went to go try to get food for us, so we all hung around by this big machine thing.
It was kind of cool because the breaks, steering wheel and wheels still worked!
Meanwhile, across the street from the fairgrounds, Brother Kukuk and Randall went to Taco Bell since every food stand in the fairgrounds had a huge line. They got us hundreds of tacos just before a huge line got there.
They came back and we all feasted on tacos.
Then, we went into this big building full of fun booths. There was an Oakland Raiders booth with Chris Cooper, who plays Defense.
And you could try on the helmets and jerseys!
There was also an RC train set,
a real Indy race car,
and 3-D pictures (this one really works)!
After that, Kyle M. had to leave, and we split up again. I was with Brother Spencer, Randall, Brother Burrill, Spencer, Andrew Burrill, Brandon and Tay. We walked around for a while. Randall noticed one troop roasting a real pig!
We then went to the Exhibition Hall to get our dinner. They had chicken, mashed potatoes, cole slaw, beans, and cake. We needed to get to the Ivy Glen area on the other side of the fairgrounds (and tucked away from the main path). We trudged all the way there, hands full of food on plates.
Eventually, we found it, and we got to eat.
Now, we all love this kind of food, and it looked good, but it didn't exactly taste good. But anyway, after dinner, we sang songs with Bishop Bromley and we told spiritual experiences.
Then, we walked over to the Grandstand for the big show. We hiked up all the steps to the very top seats.
A guy started singing a bunch of songs like "Billie Jean", "Beat It", and "Don't Stop Believen".
And best of all, Kyle M. came back!
Then, the show started.
There were dancers, gymnast ladies, terrible rappers, and the San Francisco Boys Chorus (they were really jazz-handsy).
Also, the President of Scouting in the San Francisco Bay Area talked.
After more singing and dancing, we headed out of the Grandstand. Jeremy and Dallin went with Brother Glenn, so Kyle, Ryan, Brandon, Tay, Andrew, Dallin Bruschke, and I slid down the stair banisters to the outside. We walked along the yellow path that Kyle and I nicknamed "The Yellow Brick Road".
We followed it down to the parking lot, where we hopped into the cars and drove back to the church in Danville. It was 10:30 at night when we got there, so we collected our stuff and went home.
All-in-all it was a pretty fun event. :)
