Parent Scout Outing: (by historian Spencer Nichols)
Interview with SPL Alexander Lo
The Parent Scout Outing starts the 2022-2023 scout year as Troop 42’s first outing of the year. Occurring as a Troop 42 tradition for the past few years, the parent scout outing starts the year bringing back together our scout community after a long, relaxing summer. Being one of the biggest outings of the year with over 80 parents and scouts attending, we headed to Mt. Madonna County Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains, arriving early Saturday morning. Planned by parents of the troop, the day was filled with countless activities including a wiffle ball tournament, Capture the Flag, picking apples, and a terrifying night hike. When the two scouts planning the night hike abandoned Alexander Lo (our new SPL), he had to “take control and lead the group on a path [he] barely knew. In the end, [he] only lost a few people and everyone still had fun so it was okay.”
Parents with their “big egos” ultimately won the wiffle ball tournament against senior patrol although “it was not completely fair because senior patrol had already played 3 games before.” Another recurring tradition took place with the parents hosting an amazing barbeque that all the scouts thoroughly enjoyed both eating and cleaning up after. One of the favorite activities from the scouts was picking apples from a local apple farm where they bought apple pies and took apples back to camp where they made an exquisite apple cobbler (that was also very fun to clean up). Starting off this year with a blast, it’s safe to say that the parent scout outing this year was a rousing success.
