Boyscout Troop 135 heads to NYC

At 8:30 on Monday morning, the 18th of April, I am at Prince of Peace church ready for Boy Scout Troop 135 to leave for New York City. By nine all 18 scouts and 5 leaders  are in the cars and ready to go. I am in the car with four other boys who are Mac Collins, Brandon Zennevitch, Jacob Shilling and Ian Edwards. The driver is Mr. Collins.

We get to Camp Pouch a Boy Scout camp on Staten Island around 11:30 a.m. and are the first ones there. We eat the lunches that we brought from home and chill for ten minutes before the next car arrives. By 12:15 p.m. camp is set up in the leantos, small wooden cabins with an open front wall, that are already there for us. Soon we are back in the cars we came in and headed for the ferry to New York.

The ferry is free but the parking is seven dollars. The ferry was crowded with people, so that it was like a human traffic jam. After the ferry ride we get onto an old rattly subway train that we were on for at least 30 minutes. We arrived at the very interesting Intrepid museum which is a retired U.S.A. navy aircraft carrier with many planes and guns on it. My favorite plane was the Blue Angel.

We had around an hour and a half to examine the museum and get something at the gift shop, if wanted.

After the museum we go to Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Factory for dinner. I had a wonderful meal of fish n’ chips and for dessert a bowl of ice cream. My troop comes out of Bubba Gump’s and we go to Rockefeller center for a while. We visit the M&M world and go to the Lego store. The Lego store had an amazing model of Rockefeller center that was made out of Legos. We get on the same rattly old subway train going the other direction and travel seven stops until the south ferry stop comes up.

We get off there and wait fifteen minutes for a ferry because we had just missed the last one. Michael Klauk and I look at the fish they have in these huge fish tanks. I get on the ferry and go to where we will get off once it docks.

We get back to camp around 10:30 p.m. and I play some cards with the boys. I finally fall asleep at 11:30 p.m.

Tuesday morning, Tim Peterson (our senior patrol leader) comes around at 6:15 a.m. waking everybody up to start getting dressed and ready to go. Once we get out of our leantos we go over to where breakfast is being cooked by the leaders and we wait for our bacon egg and cheese sandwiches on a bagel to be ready. By eight o’clock everyone is ready to go. My troop leaves for the ferry.

We take the long ride over to Manhattan, then we walk to the NYPD museum. I found the part of the museum where they showed antique guns and weapons — my favorite. The best part though was seeing the old spiked Billy clubs.

My troop leaves the museum and goes to pier 11 where we eat lunch and go to a nearby mall. I have a wonderful $2 New York hot dog that I bought from a push cart.

At 1:00 p.m. my troop travels to the very interesting bodies exhibit, where we see various human muscles, nerves, brains and hearts. B

y 3:00 p.m. we are walking across the Brooklyn Bridge to go to the Transit Museum. We have 45 minutes at the transit museum. In the first fifteen minutes more than half of my troop has crowded into an antique subway car. We leave to take the real subway back to the ferry which ends up being a very short ride.

Back at camp we start a game of manhunt, but before anyone could win the pizza arrives for dinner. By the time dinner is finished it is 5:50 p.m. We start up the game of manhunt and play for a while. At one time my right leg got soaked when I fell in a stream and at another I tripped over a stump and face planted into the ground.

At 8:15 p.m. we start taking showers. Most of my troop stays at camp to take showers, while the rest of us, including me, go to the YMCA. At the Y there was plenty of hot water and all of us were able to take a 10-15 minute long shower. By the time we get back it is 9:00 p.m. and we sit around a small campfire and have some cookies and ice cream. At 10:00 p.m. we head in for bed but first my leanto mates plays some more cards.

Wednesday morning Tim starts off with the usual run through the leantos to wake everyone up. Once again our leaders fix us bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches on bagels. At eight we are lined up and ready to leave for the ferry.

We take the ferry over to Manhattan then we take the subway to the awesome Empire State Building. Unfortunately it was super foggy, so we went to Central Park first, where we hung around for an hour climbing on rocks. Then we go to F.A.O. Shwartz, which is a huge toy store. My troop heads to Grand Central Station where we eat lunch and grab some snacks.

At 2:00 p.m. we returned to the Empire State Building and take the elevator up. We had a spectacular view of the city from the 89th floor observation deck. It was very interesting and a bit scary. Afterwards we go to the NBC studio tour, which I found to be very interesting. We had many different questions to ask and studios to see.

Later we go to a nearby restaurant to have dinner and I have a chicken parmigiana in a wrap. After dinner we get onto the subway and I play with the whoopie cushion I bought at the NBC store. We get back to camp around 7 or 8. My leanto gets ready for bed but we don’t go to bed. We play a long game of cards.

The next morning all of us are really tired from staying up late and playing cards, but Tim still comes by to wake us up at 6:00 a.m. We get breakfast after packing up and getting our stuff out of the leanto. We conduct a Purple Heart Memorial ceremony at Camp Pouch after putting our gear in the cars and then we head home.

We get back to Prince of Peace church in Brookfield around 10:10 a.m. I get into my Dad’s car after I put away some troop gear and soon enough I’m back at home. I am tired but looking forward to the May camp out.

For more info about scouting in Brookfield please contact the following people: Cubscouts — Rob Libbey Pack 5 at 203-7445-2412, Rob Janofsky Pack 135 @203-775-9578, Boyscouts — Kirk Lauri Troop 135 @ 203-470-9050, Tom Tyrell, Troop 5 @ 203-775-4448.