The Boys' Adventure Outing

Here’s that post I promised about the boy’s wilderness camping trip.

Zachary, Wesley, Mitch (a friend from Tucson) and Andrew (another friend from Michigan) loaded up their gear and readied themselves to leave one morning after a breakfast of oatmeal and toast(??).  Zachary made the breakfast so I’m not sure if he added toast to their fare.

Notice the bananas in Wesley’s hands (far right).  I gave that to them at the last minute so they’d have some back-up provisions because these boys only took a few homemade bread baguettes to sustain them; the rest of the time they were going to live off the land.

Also notice, Andrew (on the far left) is carrying his sleeping bag in front.

The boys just barely dropped down the hill from our house before Andrew decided the sleeping bag just wasn’t going to work riding in front of him.  The boys were joking with him that if they did meet trouble he didn’t have to worry, he was protected in front with the sleeping bag and the backpack would protect him in back. 🙂

The jokes continued as Andrew lay down to have the sleeping bag tied on his back.  “Hey boys, let’s jump on him.”  “Okay, it’s time for a lunch break.”  “Let’s just set up camp here.”  I was having a good laugh as I listened to their repartee.

Wesley!  Why are you already eating a banana?  (It must have been the 50 foot hike  that got his appetite raging. 🙂 )

Okay, all good.  We’re ready to go again.

Supper that night consisted of a rattlesnake found on the trail -their first time to try such a delicacy. (written with a shudder)  They said the only problem was there just wasn’t enough meat on that snake.

Here’s the soup they made using rattlesnake meat and squirrel that they shot.  They also added young green pine tree needles which added a very strong pine taste that wasn’t much to their liking.  For added flavoring, Zachary had brought some garlic from home, along with an onion and he added that to the soup.

Excuse me, I’m afraid I’m losing my appetite.  How about you?

A modern day mountain man.

Beautiful spot

They even found a mountain lion track.  Thankfully that’s all they found.  Ei, yi, yi!

Russell met up with Zachary the next day, bringing along Justus and the boy visiting from Canada, so they could have some fun in the woods.

Later that afternoon, we rode quads to meet all the boys in a clearing.  We then picked up the 2 younger ones so they wouldn’t have to hike back the 3 miles.  Everyone was happy to see us.

Even Mitch had a big smile for me. 🙂

As soon as they hiked home they devoured all my leftovers and anything else I had on hand.  Living off the land didn’t feed well, I guess, but the memories they made are priceless.