Roaming reporter, Jimmy S, reports on the recent campout to Camp Inferno, near Pana, Illinois, sponsored by the Lincoln Trails Council:
The camp-out at Camp Inferno was awesome, and on my scale, was the second best camp-out I’d ever been on, with Camp Tesomas just beating it out. The main reason it was the best is because we got to blow stuff up. Well, we really did not blow stuff up, for some strange thing called safety, but we imploded soda cans and lit lots of fires and a lot of other cool things. First, we arrived late at night, and set up our tents in the pitch black, with the help of flashlights, of course. (My tent was all sandy inside, so an anonymous person had to clean it out, but remember, if you take a tent home, make sure it is CLEAN.) Then, we fell asleep immediately. When I woke up in the morning, I helped make a breakfast burrito with hash and breakfast sausages, and then went to a flag ceremony. After flags, the troop broke off into different groups of people. First, I went into a smoke house, which strangely enough, did not have smoke in it because of this safety thing, but instead had steam. There I learned how to escape a burning and smoking house. In a house, you normally wouldn’t do this, but since it was one story, I got to jump out of the window. After that, I went into the shop, and they had cool knives and such, but I did not buy any because these words echoed in my head, “a scout is thrifty”. Following that, I went to an implosion station. Basically, we took pop cans, put a teensy bit of water in it, heated it up, and then submerged it in cool water and the can imploded. Also near there, I got to see a thermal imaging camera at use, and it was very cool. Also near the implosions, I got to try on a fireman’s suit, and man was it heavy. Afterwards, I got to use a fire extinguisher to quench the fire and watched a helicopter land. Following that, I headed back to the campsite to eat a lunch of cold cuts and potato chips. I then headed back to main camp where I used drunk goggles and got a headache from trying to walk in a straight line. Apparently the cops don’t like it when you are drunk, so I was handcuffed and thrown into a police car. I’m just kidding, I actually offered to be handcuffed to just experience what it felt like, and it was pretty unpleasant. Subsequently, I went up into a grain silo and got sucked in. I had to be rescued by some other boy scouts, and survived. Don’t worry, this time I volunteered as well. After this, I kind of just explored the camp, and when it got later, I headed back to our campsite, Prairie Village, and had dinner. After dinner, we went back to the same place we had flags and were all given a lecture about 9/11 because the people at the fire station in whatever town we were in had acquired a piece of steel from the twin towers. After the lecture, we went to the campfire, or rather, the house fire. First, the man doing the demonstration showed us a large oil drum that he had heated up for about an hour, and then had the firemen blast it with water. It imploded and crumpled up like a soda can, except for the fact that it was 500 times bigger. Also, he showed us how to put out a kitchen fire, and it was awesome, because the fire exploded at some points. Next, he showed us a house fire. He had a makeshift room with a couch, a television, and a painting in it. He then put a candle in the couch and we watched as the flame slowly but surely enveloped the couch, then the painting, and then the TV, which exploded, and it was awesome. At the peak of the fire, I was sitting in the back row of the stadium, and I could feel the heat. It was supposedly supposed to warn us of the dangers of a flame in the house, but I think everyone there just liked it because it blew up. Afterward, we retired to our tents and slept like rocks. We got up in the morning, packed up, had a small breakfast, left, and then arrived at the RPC at about 12:30 p.m.
