National Jamboree

On July 23rd, Troop 437 left Sherwood Island Park to leave for Virginia. We drove twelve hours and set up camp that night at Fort Eustis. The next day we spent at Busch Gardens, an amusement park. We went on all the roller coasters, including GRIFFON and ALPENGEIST, both going hundreds of feet up and going about 100 mph. Sunday we toured some U.S. Navy ships and met some pirate hunters.
This is a military hummer we saw at a museum on our way there.
This is the first medical copter.
This is the pentagon.
This is the navy ship we toured. It was the biggest ship there and it had a 5" round cannon on it.

This is my friend Spencer and me on the ship. I am wearing a Kevlar helmet, it's not pigtails!
Here are Spencer and Rhodric, two of my buddies, on the bus after leaving the ships.


This is Clayton, our SPL (Senior patrol leader):
Monday, we left for Fort A.P. Hill. That day we set up camp. Tuesday we walked around and got familiar with the site.
Other activities I did during the week were:

-Buckskin Games, where I threw knives, tomahawks, and met Shaun White (he is in the black t-shirt)
-Pioneering, where we used swings, see-saws, and bridges made of wood and rope
-Motocross, where we raced BMX bikes
-Shotgun, where we shot clay pigeons (on my first try, I got all 6)
-Snorkel, where we snorkeled in a pool with 2 logos on the bottom
-Archery, where we shot bulls-eyes

Me at the Armed Forces Adventure Area holding a bazooka.
-Rifle, where we shot more bulls-eyes
-Bikathlon, where I biked then shot, biked some more and shot some more, the biked again
-And Rappelling, where we slid down fifty foot walls
My friend Merrick rappelling.

Pix from the arena shows (there were two of them):



These are pictures of Honor Society and Switchfoot.
This is Vocal Point, the BYU mens a cappela group.
I also went sailing and canoeing. Saturday night, we went to the Arena show, where Eagle Scout Mike Rowe talked to us. We saw a lot of fireworks.


This is Mike Rowe, star of Dirty Jobs.



The Fireworks.

One of the big activities is patch trading. I got around 40 patches. This is a picture of the Star Wars set from the Occonneechee Council. I didn't get these ones, they were very popular so they cost a lot of patches in return.

I got an Eragon book signed by Christopher Paolini, and a Daniel X book signed by James Patterson. I am now CPR certified for the next two years. Jamboree was really, really, really fun. I want to go to the next Jamboree in three years (held at a new high adventure base being built in West Virginia).


This is a cool racing car at Subcamp 8.

This is our troop's gateway. We were the Comanche Troop, so we had a Comanche gateway. The gateway was the entrance to our campsite we got in trouble for not using.