Ohio_Scouter

Hi John, Here''s a story from our recent personal experience. We had two of four BSA crews that went to Philmont this summer aboard the West-bound SW Chief when 2 engines and 1 baggage car derailed about 1 mile west of Fort Madison, IA, on the evening of June 11, 2007. AMTRAK got a BNSF engine to pull the passenger cars back to the Fort Madison station after the EMT squads had determined that all the passengers were OK. From there, they bussed us to Kansas City where they put us up at the Westin Hotel until we caught the noon SW Chief out of Union Station headed for Raton, NM. Way to go, AMTRAK, and thank you Kansas City! My scouts aren''t used to staying in $300/night hotel rooms and eating breakfast in 5-star restaurants for free. Best spinach omelette I ever had. I called ahead to notify Philmont that we would be a bit late due to our train derailment enroute. Camping HQ said not to worry, but to keep them informed of our progress, and that the Philmont bus would meet us at the Raton station, and the staff would accommodate us whenever we arrived. When we finally arrived at Philmont, we were about 14+ hours behind schedule. I don''t know how they did it, but the Philmont Rangers and staff were pretty resourceful about expediting our registration process. Seems like we were ushered to the head of every waiting line at Camping HQ. In the end, all we missed was the opening campfire and the religious service in the evening of Day 1. We were on the trail the next morning without missing any hikes or programs. Our guys had a blast thanks to Mark Anderson and his most excellent Philmont staff. We all wanna go back to Philmont.

Thanks for the information, John. I''ll check out Talley Bend.

Hi Ed, I''m having problems, too. I suspect somehow the site infected my Internet Explorer browser with a virus. I switched to Firefox and am not having any problems. I guess I''ll try to clean IE Explorer with my virus software and see what happens, but I read that other users aren''t having any luck cleaning their browsers. Good luck!

Thanks Gunny! I''ll check into both of your suggestions. Missouri State Parks just sent me their camping guide in the mail today. As I recall, Ha Ha Tonka State Park was listed, and it sounded pretty interesting.

Hi fellow Scouters, I''ll be traveling from Dayton, OH, to Oklahoma City, OK, on a business trip next week (September 17th), and I had planned to stop and camp out one evening on the way out and on the way back home. My plan was to find a campground about half-way between Dayton and Oklahoma City. This would be somewhere in the greater St. Louis, MO, area. Does anyone from the great State of Missouri (or Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Oklahoma or anywhere else for that matter) have a recommendation for a campground in that area? Thanks for your help.

I think the key to getting Scouts interested in hiking and backpacking is through presentations and personal testimonials of other Scouts who do this on a regular basis. Our Venture patrol has backpacked Philmont, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, parts of the Appalachian Trail, and Denali National Park to name just a few. These destinations are loaded with natural, breath-taking beauty, and our backpacking trips are also planned with plenty of side-trips along the way and back home so that the boys aren''t hiking all the time. Check out our website below for some photographs of some of our high-adventure trips. If you send me a PM, I can send you more great photos for a presentation to your Troop. http://www.troop325bsa.com

Hi Guys, Got the following error message when trying to post a reply in another area this evening: Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error ''80040e14'' [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver] Line 1: Incorrect syntax near ''9''. /forums/forum_library.asp, line 261 Hope this means something to you? Thanks!

Welcome to the forum, beardad! I think you''ll find about a million years of Scouting experience on this site--couldn''t ask for a better group of Scouters than what you''ll find here. Keep it fun. Like they say....."If it''s not fun, it''s not Scouting".

Dont' worry, Fred's not the only one.

Thanks for the warm welcome, Scott!

Hi Gang, Time is 0600 AM, Thursday, 6 Sep 2007. Virus still seems to be active. www dot xvgaoke dot cn slash 1 dot htm is the page which tries to open. My antivirus software says: "You have opened a dangerous website. Close your browser and ........" Hope this helps you isolate and neutralize the culprit. Thanks!

Thanks, Steve. I already like it here. BTW, awesome website. Here's a link to ours. http://www.troop325bsa.com/

Thanks, kb6jra! I'm really proud of our future fledgling Eagle. He's worked really hard and had loads of fun along the way. I can't think of a better program for building a person's character.

Hi Folks, Just joined the Forum. I'm an Assistant Scoutamaster in a Boy Scout Troop in the Dayton, Ohio area. Started as a young cub scout in Cleveland, Ohio in 1959, bridged over from Webelos to Boy Scouts, made second-class scout, but left scouts for other activities during high school years. Returned to Scouts when my son was old enough to participate, and we've been having a blast ever since. We just returned from Philmont Scout Ranch, and we had the high adventure trip of a lifetime. My son is currently our Troop's Senior Patrol Leader and is getting ready for his Eagle Board of Review. If he passes, he'll be the 40th Eagle in our Troop. Have thoroughly enjoyed reading all your posts and hope you are having as much fun in Scouts as we are. Warmest Regards from the Miami River Valley!