Arrows Campout

The anual Arrows Father-Son campout was this past weekend at the Reinhardt Farm near Nelson, WI. (Arrows is the People of Praise ministry for boys in first through sixth grades.)

It was cold and rainy Friday night, so Dietrich and I took our sweet time getting down there and, rather than set up a tent in the rain, decided to sleep in the back of our van. With the seats out a queen size mattress fits in there and it works really well.

We got to read a long section of The Lord of the Rings, and Dietrich only had to kick me for snorring once.

In the morning the rain tapered off and we were able to play a little baseball:

In the afternoon the weather improved considerably. One group took a trip to climb the bluff on the Mississippi River.

Dietrich and I stayed for the activities at the farm.
The activities included a .22 shooting range for the older boys and men and a BB and pellet gun range for the younger boys. (I helped run that.)

Also popular was damming up the culvert through which the little stream in the valley flows.

Afterwards we all went to the Nelson Cheese Factory for the best $1 ice cream cones you can imagine.

We finished the evening with a Lord's Day Opening celebration and an honoring of the sixth graders who finished Arrows and will be moving on to bigger things next year. It's hard for me to believe Dietrich is now only two years away from that.

And we capped the night off with some illegal-in-Minnesota-but-not-Wisconsin fireworks. I got into a discussion about politics and personal freedom before I remembered I wanted to take some long exposures of the fireworks, so this is my last second attempt to get something. It would have been a great shot :-(

Here's the shot of the valley as Dietrich and I were leaving to head home.