Waterproof what????

After my last canoe trip, and the swamping and flipping of my canoe..........many times. My Wally World Outdoor Brand water proof phone bag failed me allowing the buffalo river to invade my phone, I descided to "look into" different options.

Most of the waterproof bags are not waterproof like we think. Read the back panel on the package.

They are splash resistant.  That doesn't work for us outdoor folks. Who knows where our scouts will take us? Or when they will dump our canoes?

So I hit the web looking for deals and some stores looking for options.

 

The BG bag and the ECase came from REI. The NO Limits bag came from Academy sports.

The BG bag is your typical roll and buckle bag.

The ECase is a double zip bag.

The No Limits bag is a double zip and snap down bag.

The test consisted of my sink, spraying water all over them and then sinking them.

A folded up piece of tissue, would tell me what got wet.

The BG roll top bag, didn't survive. Well the bag did, the tissue didn't. It wasn't swamped, but it still got wet. This is a splash bag only!!

The ECase did pretty well, no water made it through the double zip. However, I don't like that it only zips close. That makes me nervous. It also has a speaker cord build in though for head phone or whatever.

The No Limits bag did well. Water made it between the  two zippers but not in the bag. Maybe I didn't have the first zipper closed well enough.

What did I learn? You can't be careful enough. I don't trust ziplock style lunch bags, though 2 together may work, double bagging it.

I will place some tissue between my device and the top of each zip top bag.

The BG bag will only be used to store something that has a ziplock bag over it. Like a first aid kit, fire kit and so forth.

The No Limits style bag is what I will use. I like that you can double zip it. This is a must! And I like that you can snap it closed to help it not un zip itself.

Whatever you choose, be careful. I think I may buy a waterproof camera and leave the iPhone in the truck!

Gear?? Heck yea we want gear.

Do you like that new gear smell, mmmmmmmm me too.

Bam new gear smell all the time, well maybe.

I had to try it ;).

Now too the real gear.

Water Shoes.

I like water shoes about like I do  knife's. Don't ask why because I don't know. But I've been looking for the perfect pair. It's important while canoeing to have a good pair of shoes. You have big rocks to climb on and sometimes pea gravel to walk through. Regular sandles don't really protect your feet.

These are my current water shoes. 

On the right are the five fingers, which I love, their only downfall is the lack of support on the bottom. In soil or sand they are hands down awesome! On rocks, not so much. The rocks can poke the bottom of your feet and make hard to walk after a bit.

In the middle are the new Keens. The cool factor is really high with scout geeks and these! Who doesn't want shoes made from paracord!

On big rocks these shoes are awesome! On small rocks, they get stuck in your toes causing problems. Not so much fun then. They are pretty comfortable though. And the lacing system is very nice.

On the left is my newest additions. The Adidas boat shoe. So far I like them, they have good support and they drain well. I don't like the laces, so I'm going to put a bungee style lacing system in like the Keens. 

Anyway maybe this will help you find your perfect canoe shoe, in the mean time I'll keep looking and let you know what I find.

Week day fun

Had a couple interesting days......

One we got to go see the ArrowTour. This is a roaming tour for OA members. We drove 2.5 hours to get there, and it was kinda lame. Sorry guys, I know it was hot and hard work. There wasn't much there. 

However we did get a pic!

That night I got to sit on an eagle board of review, this was first Eagle board and was pretty cool.

Left to right:

Mr. Phil, John beech the lodge advisor for 558, Jay Collins the lodge cook and Eagle Board something or other, The New Eagle Scout, Mr. Brian Hicks Desoto Museum Mastermind, and me

The Summer Event

This year the boys scouts planned there own summer event. We didn't call it summer camp because it was so much more. This wasn't a merit badge camp. It was an adventure camp!

The adventure took us to the buffalo river area around Jasper Arkansas. For 5 days we played in the wild then went to the Jacksonville Air Force Base to end the camp.

Our tents, happen to be a lodge. A pretty dang nice lodge also.

Meals were cooked by the scouts and food was bought by the scouts.

Have you ever had your scouts buy food for 7 days? Not an easy task.

Amazing enough though, a knock on our door every morning at 7am meant it was time to get up and eat.

Rickeretts cemtary is a great place to adventure some. Plenty of room to climb and explore.

Plenty of awesome views also.

Lunch was different, PB&J tacos. Not to shabby.

You can't adventure with out a hike, and this one had a stream crossing.

And a rattlesnake!

Whats better than a friendly game after a long day.

Blanchard Springs had some great cave tours.

They also have trails, fishing, and stuff. Plan on a whole day there.

Yep moms not here to help us.

Lunches being made.

Where better to earn the canoeing merit badge, than on a river! Not a dang lake paddling in circles!

This river had awesome views also!

That's Alexander. My rookie copilot. Never been a canoe! This is also the last picture on my phone, because in a panicky moment he leaned to far over to on side and we rolled over. Part of the game I guess.

My waterproof phone bag wasn't so waterproof and spent the rest of the trip in a bag of rice.

More pics to come though as I took my sons phone from time to time!

Be looking for a review on phone bags soon also. ;) 

ScoutMaster Danny

Busy times..........with Summer Camps

Man have we been busy!

First we had cub camp for 4 days, then we had our Boy Scout summer event. Both went great. This post will be large covering both events today. I planned on covering summer camp every night from camp, but phone coverage in the mountains of Arkansas is not so great.

KiaKima Cub Scout Resident Camp 2015

It's really hard to beat a 4 day camp for cubs! The amount of fun they can have is unmeasurable. 

Food at Kia Kima is not so much fun though. It was better than food of the past, but don't go expecting a good meal. This year we cooked several of our own.

Fire Log, we had a hollow log we were cooking on. We just put our cast iron griddle right over the hole. This log burned all night and some. Made for a great picture.

Shooting sports has to be the largest draw at a cub camp. The younger boys love to shoot. And who can blame them?

I never have understood why helocopter moms want to take knife fun away from scouts. They earned the right to use their knife, let them whittle something!! Soap is a great start.

Is there a better seat than a dad's foot?

My son Coy.

This boy cracks me up! He is one of my favorites.

If your Pack doesn't do a long camp like this, you are missing out! We do ourself made long camp over spring break. Get the boys out there and haveing an adventure!

Memorial Day 2015

What a day to remember. The rain stopped just long enough for for us to honor our veterans.

The troop placed flags along side the road of the ceremony.

A cool rebar driver, being used. Much faster than the hammer, no smashed fingers to worry about I suppose. ;)

The drive and walk up. Scouts greated and shook hands of the people showing up.

Overall it was very nice. 4 or 5 service hours, but I hope the scouts got a lot more out of it than that.

It's ashame we are loosing that great age of WW2 veterans, before these boys can hear their stories.

Memorial Day 2015 was an honor to be a part of.

2015 Spring Ordeal

Spring ordeal was a lot of fun this year. I had the chance to work with new people and old friends. While i also had the chance to watch some of my scouts particapate in ordeal.

The ride up started kinda ruff. Every weekend trip has included rain it seems, this one was no different.

This was home for the weekend, we cooked some pretty good meals for 200 people.

A little fun picking on people getting wet.

You can make new building at camp, and they are nice, but they will never replace the old buildings memories!

The OA

Our brotherhood members. Very proud of these guys.

We had a lot of rain, looks pretty here though.

We finished the trip at the new basspro in Memphis. The boys were really excited.

This is one group, we let them split up and explore.