Row, Row, Row Your Raft

Here they are, the few, the proud, the brave. The group from Troop 555 ready to take on the adventure they planned for a year ago. The first stages of planning, the building of rafts and tons more planning on how to get it all to the Ohio River was finally being realized. The weather was pretty good..only one thunderstorm to contend with. The flow of the river and the wind were the trouble spots. They all had to do alot of rowing to get the rafts where they were suppose to be headed. The current was not flowing strong at all and the wind was trying to send them the opposite direction. But they kept at it and made the trip. It will be something they will talk about and relive for a long time. Good campfire stories!
OOPPSSS...As with all good plans a snafu usually happens. It happened in the form of a fan belt. But an hour later all was sort of OK..The trip home had a few oops too.
Once they arrived at the river's edge the real work began. All had to be assembled and loaded up with 3 days supplies.
The leader raft is all ready to start loading..it looks so innocent doesn't it? So....Tom Sawyerish..
Assembling the boys raft.
Boys raft almost all loaded and ready to head out.
Momma Mia that's alot of stuff! Honestly, it really did float!
Well, they didn't sink! Let the rowing begin!
Along the river all sorts of boats were spotted. From the tiny...
To the large!...
This little honey of a paddle boat looked really cute...I'm sure the rafts looked kind of cute to them!
There was a close encounter of the scary kind with a barge...but rowing saved the day!
The experience of going through the locks....learning about the way it's done was one of the goals they wanted to accomplish.
There's a process getting ready to go through the locks. I should have had Jack do the post because he knows all about the effort it took to do it.
But they did it!
For some reason I just love this shot of the boys raft, taken from behind them...
The sunrise on Saturday morning started the last leg of this trip. Jack made it home by around 4pm...very sunburned, very tired, very happy that he and guys all made it safe and sound...very happy they did it...very happy to take a real shower! Good job boys and leaders. It's great to work so hard for so long and accomplish a task, and learn a lot too!