Mr Stachwick’s Philont Log for Crew 806-X

Day 0 (Sunday)
Crew 806-X included Crew Leader: Troy A, Chaplin: Adam T, Leave No Trace Adviser: Nathan K and Kieth A from Troop 301, and Venture Scout Carly S.  The adults on the trip included, Dr. Laura, Steve S, Mike K, and Paula T.  Steve, Carly, Nathan and Mike all rode to the airport together.  Mike parked his car in a secret military parking lot.  The trick would be getting out since it was not staffed after hours, but we’d deal with that when we got back.  We met Troy, Keith, Laura, Paula and Adam at the Southwest front counter. 

Getting through security to the gate was pretty much a non-issue, I think Paula got pulled into secondary, but was out in just a minute.  Everyone got on the plane, picked out seats and we took off.  Most just read or quietly talked and we were in ABQ before we knew it. 

On our way to the rental counter, we got put into two different shuttles, because there were too many of us.  Steve and Laura hung out at the Avis counter for what seemed like hours, but was in fact just a few minutes.  There was a bit of miscommunication and the rest of the crew was waiting for us to return with cars while we waited for them to get on the shuttle.  A cell call got us back on track.  The folks at Avis messed up the reservation and we had to scramble to get what we reserved.  The adults in the crew were very cool about it and we soon had a Ford F-150 pick up and a Chevy Malibu that had a trunk big enough to put the F-150 in it. 

We used the cell phone again to find a 50’s diner on Route 66.  Everyone ordered up the classics including Burgers, Fries and Shakes.  At the time no body knew it would be the best meal we would have for a few days.  From there we headed out towards Santa Fe.  We stopped at a gas station in the middle of nowhere.  The big local items for sale were beef jerky and spicy beef jerky.  It looked tempting, but most just settled for sodas and such.  The rest of the drive was scenic, but pretty uneventful.  We continued to the turn off for Cimmarron and stopped at a station.  We considered getting lunch at Subway, but there were two people in line, which caused the crew behind the counter to panic and go into slow mode.  So we decided to skip lunch at Subway.  We eventually regretted that decision. 

We left for Cimarron and Mike got a little turned around and started to get back on freeway and headed down the on ramp.  The problem is we didn’t need to get back on.  Mike realized his mistake about half way down so did a u-turn in the middle of the ramp and came back up it.  Laura and Steve tried to get the camera out to get a picture of them coming in through the out door, but were laughing to hard to get the shot.  If it all sounds dangerous, it wasn’t, that ramp probably only gets one or two cars on it a week.

We pulled into town and saw a sign for Pizza and stopped to get directions for it.  We found out there was only seating outside and it was raining.  So we decided to hit the Cree-Me burger joint.  The food was the worst of the trip and that’s saying something considering we would be eating standard Boy Scout Camp fare.  Most everyone got burgers again, but Laura and Steve decided to go “healthy” an ordered chicken.  What showed up might not have been chicken., nobody was really sure.  Mike made some crack about it to Laura and she immediately responded by hitting Mike with the slab of “meat”.  It was a better use of the order, because no one could actually eat it.

It was only a short drive to Philmont from there.  It was getting dark and it wasn’t exactly clear where to stop to check in.  The place was bigger than expected and while there were signs to lots of the places we would eventually visit and learn about, there wasn’t a sign saying where to check in.  So, the temptation for the adult males was to just aimlessly drive around until we figured it out, but since we had adult females we actually stopped and asked for directions.  The staff we talked to said the welcome center had just closed, but it was just up the road.  We got to the welcome center and learned, they never close, they just don’t leave the light on for you. 

The Welcome staff put us up in tents in the outbound section of the camp that were closest to the center of camp.  The youth and female facilities were close, but it was a bit of a hike to the adult male bathrooms.  It had been a long day and most of us just got our tents organized, hung out a bit and went to bed.

Day 1 (Monday)
Everyone got up easy.  We went to breakfast, but didn’t quite know what to do.  We were the last to eat since we were a day early.  We couldn’t hear the prayer or the instructions.  The year at Philmont was winding down and they were pretty short staffed.  The advantage is that there were not so many people so we got to eat and do all of our activities rather quickly.  Breakfast was the typical BS fare of eggs and tubed mystery meat.  Thankfully they had some hot sauce. We soon learned that Mike doesn’t go anyplace without his hot sauce.

Most everyone headed to the Tooth of Time Trading Post.  It’s kind of like REI, this was probably visited more times than anyplace else while we were in camp.  We eventually got to meet our Ranger, Konrad.  He is also from CA and went to school in Purdue.  He was very funny and sure of himself.  He was hoping to become an accountant after finishing school.  After a while Mike pointed out he was the scouting version of Sheldon from the “Big Bang Theory” TV show. 

With Konrad/Sheldon’s help we got our gear, health checks, payments done, plus we hit the store a few more times.  It takes all day to get ready and organized.  Konrad went through all of our stuff as a gear check.  He asked that we not bring just a couple of things.  Most of soon realized we had way too much stuff once we figured out how much food we were expected to carry.  Almost everyone started dumping things like extra clothes and accessories.  We all needed to buy some extra water bottles and carry more water than we expected.  Mike and I bought the NeoLite air mattresses that they had at the store.  They were expensive, but as Laura said they were the “BOMB”.  I won’t camp without it now!

In between all the running around we had lunch and dinner, hit the store a few times and brought stuff like snacks and sodas.  Dr Laura even had a few Diet Cokes.  As the sun went down we all got packed for the next day, took showers and hung out for bit.  After lights out, it started to rain.  It came down pretty hard and there was some lightening, which made us all a bit nervous knowing we were headed to Mount Baldy later in the week.