Last week, my focus was on preparing for the Boy Scout Outdoor Adventure Show that our council was holding to honor the 100th anniversary of scouting. As chair of the council's Get in the Game - Geocaching committee, I was also in charge of getting a booth together highlighting those two activities.
I prepared two display boards for the booth - one displayed geocaching information in general and the other highlighted our Get in the Game caches, travelers, and other activities. We also had many examples of geocaching containers both large and small and every size in between, and lots of examples of swag (that's the stuff you find in geocaches) and trackables. We also gave away four of our special GITG geocoins, only available as prizes through GITG.
All this had to come down to DeVos Place on Friday. But I couldn't set any of it up on Friday since our exhibit hall (C) was being used Friday night. We had to store everything in the B hall that was available for use. The weather on Friday was rainy and pretty nasty overall. Thankfully, I had come downtown and hidden the temporary geocache the day before.
The big complication for our scout show was the River Bank Run. This is a 25K race held annually on the 2nd Saturday morning in May. Yep, the same day as the scout show. That tied up streets and made parking pretty miserable if you didn't get there early. The council was providing shuttle service from the council offices but it would have been a much bigger hassle for me after the show to get everything. Would have had to take the shuttle up to get my car, then go back to DeVos Place, get my stuff, and load it into the car before I could head for home.
So my decision for Saturday was to get up SUPER early and try to get a spot in the parking garage under DeVos Place. I arrived there at 5:10 a.m. and got a really good spot. Glad I did as it started to fill up fast not long after. The only problem with 5:10 a.m. was that none of the pipe and draping was set up yet, so I couldn't set up my booth yet. I got to help with pipe and draping for a while, then finally got to start setting up the booth. Did just that, and had a chance to wander a bit to see some of the other parts of the show being set up.
There were opportunities for scuba diving, mechanical bull riding, rope making, pinewood derby car making, crossing a monkey bridge, archery, and a host of other fun scouting related activities. Also being set up was the new world's longest Pinewood Derby track. I mentioned on Facebook how long the track was and was e-mailed by another scouter that they were trying to keep it a secret because another council out west was going to try to break the record later this year. Sheesh!
Got hungry about 9:30ish (who feels like eating breakfast at 4:30 a.m.?) but no concessions were open. So walked to the Amway Grand Plaza next door and bought some breakfast and lunch. 10 minutes after I came back, the concession stands opened (about 10 feet away from my booth.) Figures. And Eric didn't work there so I couldn't snag any free food.
My committee started arriving about 11 a.m., and the show opened at noon. I would call it a success - much more than I expected it to be. Everyone seemed to be having a great time, and we were able to introduce geocaching to quite a few people. We had borrowed five GPS receivers from the Michigan Geocaching Organization (MiGO) and, along with our personal GPSrs, took quite a few people to find the temporary cache I'd hidden previously. Since one of the people on my committee is a volunteer reviewer for Michigan, he told me he thought it would be a decent permanent hide. So it is - just got approved this afternoon.
I didn't get to see much more of the show while it was taking place, nor did I get to see the Adventure Base 100 that was across the river at the Ford Museum. I did get to go race my Pinewood Derby car down the track. This was the only one I'd ever made myself - for a Roundtable race years ago. Not much to look at, but it came in second back then. And made it down the track in one piece, too. The track started from the second story balcony in the DeVos Place lobby and made it almost all the way down the length of the lobby. Unfortunately, I lent the car to a young scout whose dad was helping in the geocaching booth so he could try the track out and it crashed. Webelos Woody lost his head & windshield, which were found, and his hat, which was not. Oh well, just a car.
The show ended at 8 p.m., and after a quick tear down I was able to load my cart and head down to my car and home. A lot easier than the shuttle! I came home absolutely exhausted and was in bed before 10 p.m. But it was a great day to experience scouting in West Michigan.
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