We visited Prairie City Landing, a senior home in Folsom, to sing Christmas carols at 1:00 PM on Saturday. From 2:00-4:00 PM we took a tour of the Folsom train museum and blacksmithing shop (https://www.folsomhistory.org/). Next, we were honored to visit the new Chick-Fil-A restaurant owned by our own Lt. Younger, located at 2436 Watt Avenue, Sacramento, CA. Finally, we took a walk in the “Fabulous 40’s” neighborhood of Sacramento to view the Christmas light displays. Â
We took a tour of Black Chasm Cavern in Volcano, California, and hiked the nearby Miner’s Trail. This is located about 1 hour, 15 minutes from St. Stephen’s, directly east, in Amador County.
10:00am Cave tour
11:00am Short hike at Miner’s Trail
12:00 noon General Meeting covering patch requirements
12:30pm picnic lunch
February Event – Iron Mountain Snow Park
Hey troop, the second Saturday is coming up in a week, and we have a snow day planned for the troop at Iron Mountain, located in Kyburz (about 2 hours from St. Stephen’s).
This is a public state park and a snow play permit is required for the day for $15 (https://secure.cloudwisesolutions.com/app/products.html).
To get to Iron Mountain, you’ll need to drive up highway 88 towards Kirkwood Ski Resort (about 50 miles from Jackson), and turn left on Mormon-Emigrant Trail Road. The snow park will be on the north side of the road.
https://ohv.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=23062
Iron Mountain used to be a ski resort, which is now defunct but there is still some infrastructure remaining in various spots.  It’s a great place for sledding, cross country skiing, snow shoeing, and snow play in general.  Thus far the winter has been light on snow in the mountains but hopefully this current storm will bring some fresh powder. Â
I propose the following schedule:
– 10 AM: Meet at Iron Mountain park (7 AM mass at St. Stephen’s prior if possible).
– 10-12: Snow play for the troopers
– Break for picnic lunch (possible hot lunch with portable grills, if we can do something simple like hot dogs or ramen?).
– 1 PM: Short Troop business meeting to go over future events (FYI, no Wings Over Solano air show being offered in March, so we’ll need to think of something else).
Let me know if you’re interested in coming but don’t have any snow gear. We have a lot of extra snow pants and boots that I can bring for most sizes up to 12T.
Also, if we can incorporate any patch skills requirements into this event, that would also be great. Let me know if you have any ideas.
Due to poor weather for December’s event, I had to postpone our ziplining and rock climbing trip to Quarry Park Adventures to January. Â Thankfully, the weather for January 11th appears to be favorable thus far, so hopefully we can keep our reservation.
The good news is that all of our tickets are still payed for and valid for next Saturday at the same time (9 AM – 11 AM). The bad news is that our waivers appear to be expired and need to be redone here: https://go.theflybook.com/manage/YQVRBX#/lite
If anyone needs to change their availability for this month’s event, please let me know. I can still add/remove tickets to our reservation up to 48 hours before the event date.
Cancelled due to weather
| Father confirmed that the classrooms are likely available this Saturday morning and made sure with the organizer for the Woman’s Day of Recollection that we can use classrooms 1, 2, and 3. Here’s a tentative plan that I’m thinking for our woodworking event: 8:30 AM – Mass 9:30 AM – Meet in classroom 1 with the troop – Flag ceremony (I can bring a flag) led by senior cadets – Prayer invocation led by religious director9:45 AM – Troop Business – Discussion of events for next couple months: November (Hunter Safety Training), December (ziplining, climbing) & Christmas caroling at senior home,  January (woodworking), February (snowshoeing, sledding, snow play @ Iron Mountain)10:00 AM – Tool demonstrations (perhaps we can split this up into groups of 3 or 4 dads, where each dad takes a group of similar tools and discusses them with the troop) 11:00 AM – Building projects: stool, nativity manger, etc. 12:00 PM – Concluding flag ceremony and closing prayers |
| When Saturday Nov 9, 2024 â‹… 8:30am – 12pm (Pacific Time – Los Angeles) |
Angel Island Trip
Events, I’m starting a new post here to help plan our next trip out to Angel Island this Saturday, October 12th. Below are some of the most important pieces of information that I gathered from the ferry website (https://angelislandferry.com) and Angel Island State Park website (https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=468).
In April, the boys did a hike at the Indian Grinding Rock State Park in Pine Grove. The site hosts one of the largest concentration of grinding rocks in the state of California. After the hike, we visited the museum to look at the exhibits.
In March, the boys took a tour of the Gold Bug Mine (https://www.goldbugpark.org) in Placerville. After the tour, the boys did a tour of the mill, as well as the black smith station.
This was our second overnight camp out for the year. Fortunately we timed the weather really well, as the weekend was between two rain storms the previous and following weekends, with temperatures in the low 60’s in the day, and only dropping into the low 50’s at night.
Once again our troop reserved a group campsite inside the state park, within just miles of the town of San Rafael in the north Bay Area. The campsite was right next to two main trails through the park (Shoreline Trail and Bay View Trail), which were quite popular for mountain bikers. We took both of these main trails on a hike on Saturday morning starting at our camp, and circled around by the coast, and then back to the site.
After a lunch of sandwiches back at our camp with chips and oranges, we then drove over to the China Camp village and pier which was about 3 miles away. The boys had fun trying to fish for the old pier, as well as playing on the small beach, and picking up some ice cream sandwiches at the general store. There was a small museum at the China Camp Village. According to the park “a Chinese shrimp-fishing village thrived on this site in the 1880’s. Nearly 500 people, originally from Canton, China, lived in the village. In its heyday, there were three general stores, a marine supply store and a barber shop. Fishermen by trade in their native country, they gravitated to the work they knew best. Over 90% of the shrimp they netted were dried and shipped to China or Chinese communities throughout the US.”
Here was our preliminary schedule:
Friday, January 26
3:00PM – 5:00PM: Arrival / Tent Setup
7:00PM: Bonfire with Readings / Stories
8:00PM: Junior Cadet Catechism
8:30PM: Rosary led by fathers
10:00PM: Lights out
Saturday, January 27
  
6:30 AM  Prepare fire for breakfast
7:30 AM  Morning Prayer/Lauds
7:45 AM  Flag Ceremony
8:00 AM  Breakfast
8:30 AM  Tidy Camp/Pack Kitchen
9:00 AM  Hike (Shoreline Trail or Bay View Trail)
12:00 PM  Lunch
1:00 PM Free Activity Time
4:00 PM  Prepare Bonfire/Kitchen
5:30 PM  Dinner
7:00 PM  Bonfire
7:30 PM  Junior Cadet Catechism
8:00 PM  Rosary led by fathers
8:30 PM  Evening Activities (S’mores)
10:00 PM  Lights Out
  
Sunday, January 28  
7:30 AM  Morning Prayer/Lauds
7:45 AM Flag Ceremony
8:00 AM  Breakfast
9:00 AM  Tidy Camp/Pack Up
10:00 AM  Depart
