Camp Russell 2003
When the only McDonalds in Old Forge is closed because there are not enough people in town, beware! You may have picked the wrong weekend!Oh well. When we left beautiful Honeoye Falls on Friday afternoon, it was the most promising Spring day with sunshine, a bit breezy but warm. We did check the McCauley Mountain web site before we left: it said spring skiing conditions (the last update was March 4th - 3 + weeks ago). As we got closer to Camp Russell, remnants of snow became visible and hopes for a fun Saturday on the ski mountain were very alive.
16 boys and 10 of their fathers ended up in the nice Camp Russell cafeteria where we set up to sleep and eat for the next 36 hours. Everybody was told on Friday night that 10:30 pm was bed time. It was so quiet at 10:31 pm, it was almost scary. Never in my scout life have I seen such a great behaving bunch of kids (and parents). We started Saturday with a pancake breakfast, while rain and warm temperatures tried to wipe out the little snow that was left. Oh yes, this is known as the "Mud Season" I was told by Spike, the camp director, "We showed up at possibly the worst weekend of the year"… great!!!
What do you do with 16 boys on a rainy day in the Adirondacks? We quickly developed and deployed plan B: morning at the Old Forge Hardware "Museum" (half the people just go in to look), then go bowling in town or see a movie. The famous hardware store was open (they gave everybody willing to buy anything a 20% discount) and we spent part of the morning looking at hardware - awesome.
After that our caravan of 6 SUV’s and Vans moved around town to find the bowling alley – we found it closed. The only other place in town that was open was the tourist office, just to find out that nothing is open and our best bet would be to drive to Utica.
Plan C was to go to Utica, have a quick lunch, watch a movie and go bowling. An hour later we found ourselves at the Utica Mall standing in line at the Wal-Mart’s McDonalds – the line was too long to make it in time for the next movie at the theater nearby. We decided not to eat and head straight for the movie theater, where one of the parents bought a super size of refillable pop corn – enough to get us all through lunch (we had the entire theater for ourselves). After an exciting and scary movie, we headed downtown to the bowling alley. Great fun! We played a couple of rounds, had some Pizza and headed back up to Camp Russell. The day was saved.
Dinner was next: Pasta with meatballs and spaghetti sauce, salad on the side. The kitchen is great – all commercial grade equipment. Due to the lack of pots and pans, we used aluminum containers to heat up the spaghetti sauce and meatballs in one of the ovens. Unfortunately, we left one of the full sauce containers at 350 degrees over night in the oven to wake up to what looked like a Cajun delicacy to the untrained eye.
After dinner, a bunch of boys and parents got together for a Euchre championship. It sounded like a lot of fun and it was little past 11 pm when the last card was drawn. Other than a lone sleepwalking and talking boy, the night was uneventful.
We finished off our weekend at Camp Russell with our second annual individual made to order omelets and everybody headed back home with some fresh snow on the road.
Despite the lack of snow, we all had fun and are looking forward to next year. We probably should call McDonalds in Old Forge before we leave next time.
