Ok, it didn't go quite like I envisioned. Although we were around some pretty raw wilderness we actually stayed on the far side of an established campground. This was my first time to camp in this type of venue but I didn't want to get to far out since I wasn't sure how all of the boys would take it. Four 9 and 10 year olds were a little more to handle at one time than expected. They were more interested in down the road to the basketball goal when we first got set up. I didn't get a whole lot things but I did give them whistles, flashlights, & light sticks. They did keep up with the whistles because I told them they were for emergencies and only for the hiking part but within the camping area as well never knowing what types are around. I was surprised but they didn't seem to care about the flashlights and the lightsticks were more for swinging around. I did bring a whole set of Moras, Helles, my son's highly customized Air Force knife, etc to let them work on their own sticks for hot dogs and marshmallows. I wanted to show or teach them basic knife handling. I was little nervous since they didn't have much experience. I'm nervous with my own but he has Moras, pocket knives, Khukuri, Parang, etc so he at least has some exposure. The best part about this was that my daughter, 15 YO, who wouldn't hardly touch the Helle Odel that I got her several years back and never seemed to be interested in doing something like this has made me promise to take her now and she spent a good deal of time whittling with her knife. She said, "you know this is really relaxing". We were right about a creek with a bluff on the other side and the boys did spend a lot of time occupied down there. I wish that I could have gotten video but they swear that a Squatch threw a rock at them and when it sounded like a bunch of Howler Monkeys had gotten loose I realized they were down there making Bigfoot calls. There were legitimate sightings of chipmonks, squirrels, deer, and other misc wildlife. They weren't much for cooking over the fire but I learned quite a big on cooking with my cast iron pots and found that wrapping biscuits around a stick and setting it above the fire worked great. I gave up on working with the bow drill for fire and that kind of stuff and decided to wait and do that more one on one with my kids. My son wanted to show them how to start fire with steel wool and a battery but I decided that probably wasn't a good idea because I was afraid his friends might try it at home. The tent worked out pretty good, however, it was extremely hot because they were now afraid to unzip the main cover for fear that Bigfoot would be around. The crashing sound of a tree or huge limb falling at midnight didn't help the situation. All in all it was a fun trip and my kids and I are going to spend more time on more serious learning but it just seemed like a group of boys this age weren't going to sit still to learn. They were more worried about wrestling, throwing rocks, and passing gas.
