Troop 29 at the Fall Camporee

This year's Fall Camporee was October 21-23. The weather wasn't the best, but Troop 29 still had a pretty good time. Dick and I helped Vern run a "fire" activity for Webelos, where they could learn about fire building, try their hand at flint and steel, make popcorn, and make a neckerchief slide (as in the first photo). Some of the Scouts in the Troop put together a gateway to our campsite, and some just sat around the fire.

For me, the exciting part of the weekend was the Iron Chef competition. I was the adult advisor to our Troop's Iron Chef team. (The Scouts picked me because of my previous Iron Chef experience.) Regardless of the amazing similarity to Pizza-Stuffed Peppers, the Scouts came up with the Halloween-themed dish on their own: sweet peppers with a jack-o-lantern face, stuffed with chili and topped with brains (spaghetti noodles)! The secret ingredient--a whole chicken--was cooked up in "Mucus Marinade" (note the green color inside the dutch oven).

A little later in the day, I participated in food judging for the cooking competition along with several other adult leaders from our district. I was a dutch oven cooking judge, and got to eat some really tasty stuff! During the eating, a few were talking about the Iron Chef competition and that jack-o-lantern dish.

That evening, at the closing, we won first place in the Iron Chef competition, first and third in the backpacking stove cooking competition, and third in the dutch oven cooking competition!