Hiking Wonderland

Followed eight scouts on a 5-mile hike yesterday around the town. Each one successfully oriented their map, showed our direction 3 times, and led the gang for over a half mile with at least 3 intersections and changes in direction.
We've got miles and miles of sidewalks, paved trail, and unpaved trail throughout our town and we used them all. We even had a short stretch along a road with no trail, so we use our hiking safety skills.
We also found some big, beautiful, red poison ivy as well as many other plants ranging from wild grape vines to red pine to still gree buckthorn. No one quite identified 10 plants, but some got close.
Animals were more scarce with just a squirrel, Canadian goose, blue jay, and red-wing blackbird being identified. We did see a flock of white pelicans floating high in the bright, clear blue sky but none of the scouts could identify what they were.
As the sun began to set, a couple scouts were getting concerned we wouldn't make it back in time since they hadn't brought flashlights, but they did a great job and we were only 4 minutes late on a 2 hour estimate.

After that, I got to attend a district committee meeting - not nearly as much fun. :-)

If you're in the NorthEast, batton down the hatches. The rest of you guys, get your scouts out to enjoy this great hiking time of year.

Scout On