Camp Out at Dinosaur Valley State Park

Pack Camp Out

23-27 June 2010

Nine families from Pack 287 traveled to Dinosaur Valley State Park near New Braunfels on Wednesday to enjoy a long weekend of fun and scouting. The pack paid for the camp site and dinners for all the families. In addition, boys who sold link tickets or who worked at least two hours at the garage sale fundraiser in May earned some or all of their ticket expenses for this trip (or the entrance fee for Sabine District's Day Camp).

We chose Dinosaur Valley for its signature dinosaur tracks fossilized into the rock near the Paluxy River. Wednesday afternoon our families, along with six families from Pack 232 in Nederland, wasted no time exploring the river by going for a swim.

Though this was deemed a camping trip, Committee Chair Brandon Deckert termed this a "vacation sleeping in tents" because we visited nearby attractions for much of the trip. Thursday we spent the day at the highly ranked Fort Worth Zoo, featuring exhibits such as the outstanding World of Primates, locally-focused Texas Wild, and majestic Asian Falls. We wrapped up the day with a visit to Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament, where we ate hearty fare with our hands while watching the knights of the realm battle the treacherous Green Knight in order to save the kingdom.

On Friday morning we walked over to the Main Track Site #2 to see the theropod and sauropod tracks, then hiked along the Blue Trail, taking the detour up the Yellow Trail to an overlook, then back and farther down the blue trail to where it passed near the camp sites.

After cleaning up and eating lunch, we headed out to Dallas to see the National Scouting Museum. Though some of the youngsters were skeptical, once they got to Cub World, they had a blast and were not ready to leave when the museum closed. We finished off the day by going to see the Texas Rangers play the Houston Astros. Combined with Pack 232, we had a section of over 50 people cheering for the Astros - loud enough to be disconcerting to the Ranger ballplayers and the nearby Ranger fans! On a drizzly evening, the Astros managed to pull off a win to break the Rangers 11-game winning streak. On this sloppy night, both teams made multiple errors and had lots of hits, but the Astros had extra-base hits while the Rangers had singles. After the post-game fireworks, we got home after midnight for the second night in a row.

Saturday, we took our time in the morning, and didn't get going until almost lunch. We headed to the Dublin Dr. Pepper Museum and Soda Shop - the only Dr. Pepper bottler to continuously use the original recipe with pure cane sugar. Following the Cuban Missile Crisis and the resulting spike in sugar prices, Dublin stayed with the original formula when everyone else switched to high-fructose corn syrup to save money. After the tour, we enjoyed the Dr. Pepper, which everyone attested was very much better than the "new" formula. After a late lunch we headed over to the Brazos Drive-In Movie Theatre, arriving early to be at the front of the line. Though the wait was long, we parked on the front 2 rows for a great view of Toy Story 3 and Prince of Persia. Amazingly, almost all the kids stayed up through both movies, and we didn't head back to the Dinosaur Valley until 1:30 a.m.

Sunday we went for one final swim in the Paluxy River after breaking camp. We headed home exhausted but happy.