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.
While we were not allowed to light actual fires, the spirit of the campfire was saved by a gas stove. We gathered around the campfire whenever we had downtime and we just talked. We all got to know each other better, especially the first years. Personally, I learned that the people coming into our troop were great people and would like to say that I had made friends with them.
Lastly, we had surprising success with Gladiators in week 1. We earned second place in Gladiators, which we were super hyped about. We even have the wooden sword to show for it. Now, onto Week 2. Our week 2 squad was much smaller than the week 1 guys but we still had a lot of fun. The smaller group of people let us get to know each other better and to strengthen friendships we had already established. 
On the last few days of camp, we regularly visited their campsite and had a lot of fun with them. We also did some fun yells with them, such as the “Hail Vectron” yell. One surprise for us was a group of 3 sea scouts that joined us. 
Their names were Desmond, Ollie, and Jasper. They will always be remembered by the people of week 2, whether the memories are good or bad. We made Troop 42 wristbands for everyone in week 2 and the scouts of ship 09 also have one that they can remember us by. Camp Royaneh is always a different experience. Even if the facilities are the same – the disgusting bathrooms, the Salisbury steaks…– one thing is always different. The people that we encounter there. That is what made the Camp Royaneh 2021 experience so different from past years. 