Some of our scouts earned their Art Merit Badge.

As a part of that badge they took a field trip to the Denver Art Museum and talked about various genres of art.

This year some of our scouts went to the Truck Transportation Merit Badge which the Denver Area Council arranged and was hosted by Graebel Van Lines.  Graebel was the trucking company that shipped out our gear for the National Jamboree.

The scouts saw all aspects of trucking, including vehicle maintenance and safety, how to pack effectively, and how the trucks are routed.

Some of our scouts worked on their swimming merit badge.
Here are some photos of that, including when they had to use their long sleeve shirt and pants as flotation devices.
A friend who was in the Coast Guard said the reason Navy and Coast Guard personell have long sleeves is so they can blow their shirt up as you’ll see in these photos to help them float better.

For the National Jamboree in Virginia this Summer, Graebel Van Lines is transporting all of our equipment to Virginia.  Graebel hosted a Truck Transportation Merit Badge workshop on Saturday, February 6th.  The coolest thing we saw was the engine of a truck.  An interesting fact the scouts found out is that Graebel stores all kinds of things at their facility – the Broncos even have some hot tubs stored there.  There may be another one Truck Transportation Merit Badge workshop coming up in the Fall if you’re interested because there was such demand for this one.  They thought only 30 scouts would register, but they had over 100!  They couldn’t accomodate everybody so they created a waiting list that currently has over 30 scouts on the list.  The staff at Graebel, the Scouts, and the Leaders all had a great time and said they would be willing to do this again.

Here are some pictures from that merit badge:

On Sunday 9/13/2009 at around 7 AM the scouts met at Bob’s house in Highlands Ranch to earn the 50 mile segment of the cycling merit badge.  All of the scouts completed the ride and the last one came in at about 7 hrs. 22 minutes where it had to be completed in under 8 hours.  The route went from Highlands Ranch near the golf course through Highline Canal to the C-470 trail.  Then C-470 trail to the Platte River trail and to the Bear Creek Trail.  Then the scouts biked to Dinosaur Ridge, took a break to eat lunch there, and then biked back all the way along the C-470 trail back to Highline Canal and back to the starting point.  Here are some pictures, including a few from Dinosaur Ridge.