By James Y. (Scorpion Patrol Historian)
On June 12th, on a Friday afternoon, we all gathered around Saint Francis Church to prepare to leave. We packed up our belongings into the cars. Then, at around 5:30 PM, we headed out for a long three hour drive.
Three hours later, we arrived at Cheatham Annex, a navy base. It was around 9:00 PM at that time. Everyone parked in a paved lot, and our campground was a wide field of grass next to a large dining fly over some tables. We all unpacked and set up our tents. Some scouts goofed off past 12:00 AM until they were finally ordered to go to sleep, and everyone could try to get a good night’s rest.
The next morning, we woke up and had breakfast. As soon as we finished, we began a long instruction session about knots, lashings, and first-aid. When we finished, we moved on to lunch. However, it took a long time to clean up and we ended up in Busch Gardens a tad late.
We arrived at the Busch Gardens’ parking lot and took a bus to the front gate. Before we went in, we all received our meal and ride tickets. New scouts stayed in one big group, while the older scouts got to go in smaller groups scattered about. Busch Gardens was divided into categories like the following: France, Scotland, Britain, Octoberfest, Germany, etc. We all walked through the gate to find ourselves in Britain.
However, we all needed to meet back at the British fountain by 9:30 PM to get back to the campsite. For every minute late was an hour of community service.
Even though the roller coasters were supposed to be fun, everything got shut down because of bad weather. Even the indoor rides were closed. There wasn’t anything really to do except carnival games. Sometimes it would be sunny again, and they continued to shut it down. However, at one point, it began to rain so much the streets were flooded. You could see people squatting under tables! In addition, the streets were wet and made it hard to go places.
Eventually, we stopped for dinner. We could go anywhere in Busch Gardens to eat because of the meal ticket. The food there was actually pretty good. In the end, however, it stopped raining, and we were able to go on some rides.
From 9:00 PM to 9:30 PM, more people poured into the clearing with the fountain. At 9:30 PM, however, some people were late. When we finally rounded everyone up, we rode the bus back to the parking lot, and we rode in cars back to our lot at the navy base. Then, we went to sleep without a campfire this time.
We woke up the next morning and packed up our tents and gear. We cooked breakfast, cleaned the area, etc. At last, we were finally able to go home, and we went home after another long three hour drive back.
Busch Gardens was an awesome outing. However, it was kind of ruined by the rain. Even though it sort of got rained out, it was still fun to ride at least some of the roller coasters!
