Monday, August 18, 2014

Forever Faithful Oshkosh 2014 trip of a lifetime! No kidding!

Sunday evening, August 10, and we find over a hundred and fifty pathfinders and staff from our club heading overnight to Oshkosh, WI.  Much excitement and anticipation (me, not so much - but I was VERY pleasantly surprised!)

In the wee hours of the morning somewhere (prolly) in Indiana

Oh why am I taking a picture of a corn field.  Prolly a good example of GMO product. 

Made it safely to camp city Monday midday

The Hope channel broadcast the main meetings live.

10 girls crammed into a double cab (don't worry, we weren't on the main roads).  All vehicles except golf carts were banned from the internal roads after 7pm on Tuesday.

Squished

Traffic jam on Tuesday morning


Every Union decorated their entrance.  I thought this one was really creative

Here's another one.  Clubs and conferences also had unique decorations.

Oshkosh is known for the Air Museum.  We had free access to that and some of the girls turned astronaut!




Four hangars plus many exhibition tents and structures served to provide a myriad of activities for the 47 000+ participants.

Some of my girls on "green T-shirt day"

Is this Ranger Rick from the Guide magazine?

Every day there were parades and of course the march and drill competition.

YT and Brenda Walsh from 3ABN.  She snagged me into a live television interview - petrifying - but it went OK, thanks to the Lord. 

We gathered every evening for a meeting

About 5 jumbo-trons helped everyone to see well.

School buses shuttled us back and forth (but we still had miles to walk just to get TO the buses LOL)



One of the activities was ice-skating at the YMCA.  They could ice-skate twice a day for 1.5 hours each time if they desired.

C and M strike a pose

Acting like pros

Yippee!

Crowds got bigger as the time went on

Skating along like...

Wow, we're celebraties

Volleyball

Can you believe this?  An indoor waterpark inside the Y!





C and E enjoying the moment


Indoor soccer.  I think they had tournaments going on the whole time.

Evening light

360'.  People still coming in

We had a different color shirt for each day.  I can see why!

Part of a pathfinder history display

Motorbike demonstration

Part of a parade

The theme was Daniel and his 3 friends - "Forever Faithful"

They spared no details in making the story come to life.  Amazing stuff! 


Even sailing was on the list of activities


Our skipper was a girl currently studying in TN


Back safe and sound (after getting stuck in the doldrums for a while)

More bus riding

The weather was perfect - except for the grand finale on Sat. night!

Some close-up of the stage


Dishwashing duty back at camp

The view from our (my and another staff counsellor) tent

Sargeant Moody directs the parade traffic (only kidding).  It was a stifling hot day but he looks as cool as a cucumber.

After the parade, we collapse on the grass
 Saturday night we left for home again - drove from midnight local, to 18h30 eastern time.  Well done, good and faithful pathfinders!  You survived - and we counsellors survived!