Good to be HoME

I'm writing this post from the front porch of the Silver Sage Staff Activity Center (or SAC for short) at my home away from home, Philmont Scout Ranch.  Forget Disney World, this is the place to be.  The mountains, the views, the challenges, the friends, the Phil-families, just everything about PSR makes it the greatest place to be.  While I have been here for several days now, I haven't had time to get out my laptop and sit down and write so I have a little catching up to do.

Currently, I am at base camp while I get trained for my job (that's a loosely defined term) as a program counselor at a backcountry camp called Rich Cabins.  The idea of this camp is that the participants are stumbling upon the house/farm/ranch of the Rich family (Brothers Joseph, John, and David, Sister Frida, and Step sisters Francis and Rose, along with five hired hands that will be fixing up the place, including Rose's half brother and John's local gambling buddy) in 1907, and being gracious hosts, they welcome them in the rest and relax as long as they're willing to do a few chores in the meantime.  I will be playing John, the second youngest brother who was a former railroad worker who had moved into Joseph and Frida's house so they all can help each other.  After a little research, I did find out that John went on to take the family's herd of cattle to Kansas City to sell and took the payment and lost it all in a poker game and had to return home to sell the house and start again somewhere else.  Yeah, I get to be the guy that eventually ruins the family.  It'll still be fun.

Soon my camp will scatter into the backcountry to set up for when the first participants arrive in a week.  We're all ready to go but sadly we have to finish some more training (that I already received a year ago) before we can go.  In the meantime, I'm meeting new friends, including several rangers from Oklahoma, and reconnecting with old ones and just having a dandy time pickin' on the porch and just having fun.

My next post probably won't be until my next set of days off (I don't know when that'll be) when I get back to internet connectivity and my computer but I'll still keep y'all updated.

Until next time, good night, good luck, and God bless Ronald Reagan and the fine folks at CZ.

-CP III