This was our most awesome adventure to date. Our Crew of 19 included 7 Venturers, 4 Boy Scouts and 8 Leaders/parents. We endured a 2-day drive to Colorado and camped at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.  While there we toured the Academy, rock climbed in the Garden of the Gods, ate a Western dinner at the Flying W Ranch and toured Mantiou Cliff Dwellings. Then we drove farther west to visit St Elmo, an old mining town and chipmunk hangout, before starting our 3 night backpack trek on the Colorado Trail. While on the trail, we hiked up 14,229 foot Mt Shavano.  Eleven successfully made it to the top while one stopped just short of the top and four others had to turn around at about 12,500 feet due to the effects of altitude.  A great effort by all. After coming off the trail we stopped for some much deserved ice cream on the way to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. There we relaxed, ate great dutch oven cooking, and enjoyed some down time on the dunes.

This was the hardest event we've had. We backpacked 18+ miles through the Shawnee Forest in Southern Ohio, up and down steep trails, in and out of the rain, on some barely marked trials. Congratulations to Meghan, Jaclyn and Rob (Meghan's Dad) for completed this trip.

May was a very busy month for Crew 193.  For starters, three youth volunteered at the district camporee doing multiple jobs as need. They were recruited to participate in the Iron Chef competition, and using the few things we brought managed to win best flavor for a curried peanut fish.  Great job Jessica, Meghan, and Lauren.  The next week most of the Crew completed the NRA Handgun Safety Course.  Now they can shoot handguns at any Crew or Council event.  Two weeks later we participated in the annual grave decoration at the VA cemetery where we helped place flags on graves of our war veterans. Afterwards, we went to John Bryan State park for some climbing and rappelling.  Congrats to Jessica who finally overcame her fear of going over the edge and rappelled for the first time. We later enjoyed ice cream at Young's Dairy.

We had a great time at Marengo Caves in southern IN.  We warmed up the "The Crawl" a dark plywood cave that was more fun than it looked. Next we follwed the Dripstone Trail to the Crystal Palace and saw some amazing underground scenery.  we also got our first chance to crawl through a tight space in "The Masher." After lunch, we headed to the Underground Adventure in a wet cave.  Our shoes were wet right away since we followed a creek into the cave. We enjoyed squeezing the whole crew into the Mud Room, getting wet in the Bathtub, and finding some really tight spaces to squeeze through. Thanks to Demarie and Steve Leigh for joining us for the first time and allowing us to spend one more night out.

What a great day it was to be outside in March, 60 degrees and sunny. We offloaded tons of food (literally) from incoming cars. loaded the food into cardboard barrels and hauled them to the basement food pantry at the Life Enrichment Center. Everyone worked hard and enjoyed helping a good cause. Then we had ice cream to top off our work on the food drive. Next we drove to Wright State for their challenge course. Fourteen Venturers and leaders participated in team building and communication exercises. It was an awesome day!

We had an awesome trip to Twin Creek MetroPark. We camped Friday night in weather 30 degrees warmer than last month and awoke Saturday to snow covered tents. We packed our backpacks and hiked 6 miles of trails around Twin Creek. Lunch was grilled quesadillas on the trail--a nice warm lunch. We finished the hike back to the group site. That evening we told long and memorable stories around the campfire while Nora built a huge Teddy Bear snowman. This was a great trip as we learned much about camping and hiking in the snow. We even saw a Boy Scout Troop launching Pinewood Derby cars up the track. You read that correctly...rocket propelled up the track, and some even made it all the way up and over.

We camped at Indian Lakes State Park. There we sledded, threw snowballs, made snow angels, hiked, geocached, played on the playground, visited the Neil Armstrong museum, cooked in dutch ovens, skiied until 2 am, went to bed at 3 am with a temperature of -3, slept warmly (somewhat). Most importantly...we had fun and survived the coldest day we've had in a long time.