Why did the monkey cross the stream?

I don't remember for how many times or how many years I've been in Scouts, either as a kid or as an adult leader.  However, as an adult, it beats a whole lot of other church assignments.  I mean, I get my blessings for going camping once a month and starting fires and tying knots - how cool is that?!
A perennially popular activity is building a 'monkey bridge,' a nice, safe-looking stylized drawing of which structure is this:

What could possibly go wrong, right?

So, recently my hardy patrol of only three guys (reduced in number by end-of-summer family trips, general wimpiness, illness, etc.) and four adults headed for the woods with tents, ropes, chain saws and big plans in hand.  By the way, that ratio of four grownups to three Scouts was almost high enough to be comfortable - a few more adults and we would have felt fine.

We camped on the land of a friend an hour south of Raleigh.  After clearing the spent shotgun shells from the fire pit, the Scouts got a fire going.  A wilderness area it was not.

For rank advancement and general know-how, the boys have to cook meals.  This fellow had never seen spaghetti move by itself until that evening.

Meanwhile, the adults used the chain saws to cut small trees for the bridge trestles and the boys carried them off with appropriate grim tough-guy expressions.  I mean, look at the size of that log.

The next morning, the ropes were untangled, 

the hand lines attached to the big foot rope,

and the design of the rope bridge started to take shape.

The guys lashed together the supporting A-frames,

and helped plant them securely on either side of the Black'n'itchee Creek. so christened that day.

Pretty soon, the ropes were fastened securely and tightened,

and the first Scout started uneasily across.

So, maybe we hadn't figured everything exactly perfectly, and the first guy wisely bailed early.  At that point, we sent an adult across to adjust the lines.  He had fun anyway.

To say that the next couple of crossings were uneventful would not be giving full credit to the balance of the young men involved, but they made it.

Mostly.  To be fair, it should be pointed out that no one actually fell into the the roaring waters of the Black'n'itchee.  

I mean, 'almost' only counts in horse shoes, hand grenades and H-bombs, right?

It was also voted that a complete crossing didn't have to mean being upright at the end.

The sheer terror of walking the bridge 

was exceeded only by the relief of reaching the other side in one piece.

One grownup kid started across, but with the aphorism "lives to fight another day" going through his mind, he wisely turned around.

After disassembling The Bridge, the Scouts and dads picked up some more trash and spent shotgun shells, loaded up the ropes and headed home with some good stories with which to terrify their mothers and make their younger siblings jealous.

We hope that your church assignments are as much fun, but that your bridges are a bit less woggly.

Dave

We hope it's still there!

As Hurricane Dorian heads north after devastating the Bahamas, we also fear for the folks that live along the Carolina coast, as well as for the coast itself.  For almost four decades, we've visited it at least once each year, save for the four summers we were south of the border.
This year was no exception.  We went to the Outer Banks for kiting twice so far this year, and in August we traveled to Topsail Island, our favorite place to spend a lazy week at the beach.  It's great for early morning walks,

getting better acquainted with the newest granddaughter, 

 taking pictures you hope will be noticed by anyone at National Geographic,

 and generally messing around with kids and parents of the family.

My overactive brother Mark found a perfect place to kiteboard about an hour away, a sandbar in the middle of the Bogue Sound, which is a wide body of water between Emerald Isle (a barrier island) and the mainland.  This could only be approached by watercraft such as the jet ski Mark brought.

An ex-missionary of ours from Cincinnati dropped by for a couple of days, and of course had to be recruited - the first one is always free, right?

He surpassed all expectations, making my years-long struggle to learn the sport look silly, and by the second session, he was up and running.

He departed wondering if he could kiteboard in Cincinnati...(the answer is no.)

Paula has gradually shifted our accommodations up, and this time there was a pool, which was great when the surf would get too rough, or when someone badly needed to learn to roll a kayak, or a baby needed to float around.

It is hard to have a bad week at the beach, and once again it was a good one.  There's always that last afternoon before packing up, sitting talking on the sand and listening to the ocean before heading back home to whatever awful thing reality has waiting.

By the way, don't tell anyone about Topsail Island; it's a secret that's getting around to too many people from New Jersey already.  And New York, and Ohio and all those other places.

We hope you find a good place for summer reunions, and I didn't mention Topsail, OK?

Dave & Paula