Beautiful Colorado

Isn't this a nice photograph of the Colorado state flag? The sun is shining through it and the mountains are in the background. The other flag is the World Scouting Emblem, the international symbol of scouting of all kinds.

Here the boys are unloading the trailer and getting their tents ready for the week. Everyone uses a large plastic tub for their personal things. They are waterproof, somewhat bugproof, and they stack nicely in the trailer. You can see that our camp site was at the top of a little hill. The trailer could not be easily brought to the top, and neither could my carcass.

Each troop has a flag with their troop number and hometown. They looked great all lined up at the common area. But three hours after our arrival, on the way to line up for dinner, the first of our boys started feeling sick and threw up.

One hour later, we had half a dozen feeling ill, throwing up, and/or having diarrhea. They were not showing signs of feeling better, and several were throwing up repeatedly (over a dozen times) without any relief. The medical center on the camp was overwhelmed and had no ability to administer an IV or give anti-nausea drugs, so one of the other leaders, Gerry, and I, decided to take them to a nearby hospital before they got too dehydrated. By this time several of them were starting to have chills and they wrapped up in blankets for the 30 minute trip.

The road was a bumpy dirt road (not Honduras bumpy, just dirt road in the US bumpy) and the boys moaned as we attempted to find the best compromise between speed and smoothness. The two nurses and one doctor at Pike's Peak Regional were scrabling to get enough beds for them all, and I went from room to room helping as Gerry checked them in. Soon most of them were getting an anti-nausea medicine in their IV which made them sleepy. By midnight, all but one was asleep. But that wasn't the end of the story...