Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

We toured the Smithsonian Udvar Hazy Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport on Wednesday on our way in to DC.

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SR 71 Blackbird

The museum is home to an SR 71 Blackbird, the Space Shuttle Discovery, and hundreds of planes and helicopters from various eras.

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Caleb and Samuel Smith surprised their brother Eli by joining us at the museum. Doug Fournet and Larry Thompson also joined us at Dulles.

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Goodbye Summit!

We had an early wakeup at 2am Wednesday while the rest of the Summit was still sleeping. We had to take down the tents and dining flys and haul our gear to the pickup point at our subcamp headquarters.

We checked the radar when we awoke (something we have gotten very familiar with) and noticed a large thunderstorm bearing down on us. The boys kicked it into high gear and we “borrowed” a large staff tent near our pickup location to stage our gear. The last of the gear and boys made it to the tent just as the storm hit the camp at 3.45am.

Thanks to our teamwork the boys and our gear were able to stay dry through the storm. Our bus arrived at 5.30 and we quickly loaded up and were gone by 5.40.

Goodbye Summit!

Stadium Show

Saturday was the big stadium show. It was originally scheduled for Saturday, but due to the weather forecast, it was moved to the afternoon.

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There were several guests and speakers, including Mike Rowe from Discovery Channel (“Dirty Jobs”, “Deadliest Catch”). Mike is an Eagle Scout and he gave a great talk about Scouting and educating our youth.

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Later, the rock group 3 Doors Down performed. They did a great job of and the boys really got into it.

You might be able to find the Mike Rowe and 3 Doors Down videos on YouTube.

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Day of Service

Wednesday we had an early 5am wakeup and a 7am pickup to head out for our day of service. We traveled 90 minutes to Welch, WV to a cemetery to perform some landscaping and painting.

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Each Troop at The Jamboree will do a day of service during their stay. That’s over 35,000 scouts heading out to do helpful projects around West Virginia.

The 9 Counties surrounding The Summit have been preparing for the past three years for these service projects to help in much needed areas. It’s a great way for the boys to give back to the community that helped build The Summit for them.

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At our project we painted several railings and cleared brush from the grounds of the cemetery. The cemetery had gravesites dating back to the mid-1800s and held the grave of the first pilot shot down in WWI.

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Opening Ceremony

Tuesday morning we attended the opening ceremony in the Summit Stadium. They introduced the Bechtel family who donated the land and much of the funding for the Summit.

Afterwards, the boys spread out across The Summit to take in the activities and sites.

The facilities here are first class. One of our Assistant Scoutmasters, Joel Stinnett, is working the rock climbing area and said they are using specially designed equipment that is better and safer than any he has seen before.

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Summit Scenery

The Summit is a beautiful place and the grounds are amazing. Here are some shots from an evening walk around the lake.

The weather today was much hotter than expected – highs in the low nineties with no breeze and lots of humidity. While there are lots of trees, most of the camping areas are wide open fields with little shade.

Our camp site is about 20 minutes from the lake activities and rock climbing, but further from other areas of camp. Overall, we are in a fairly central location.

The boys had a busy day setting up camp and getting unpacked. We had to figure out how to pickup and prepare food, cleanup, shower, and trade patches. They did a fantastic job pulling together and taking care of everything.

Tomorrow morning we have the opening of ceremonies at The Summit Stadium.

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