Cub Scout Egg Launch

Thursday, July 1 was the annual Cub Scout district egg launch. The first year Ryan was in scouts, we were on vacation, so he wasn’t able to participate. Last year, I was involved with my WGU meetings, so Rara & Papa helped him make his rocket and took him to the egg launch. So, in Ryan’s three years in cub scouts, this was the first time I’ve been able to go with him.

It was hilarious! It was held at the usual location – at a park with tennis courts. The rockets were launched in the tennis courts, and I believe the idea was that they would stay within the fenced area of the tennis courts. Well, about every fourth or fifth rocket went WAY outside of the tennis court fencing. I was sitting with my friend, Kim. We quickly realized that we couldn’t chit chat until our own kid’s rocket was launched, we had to pay attention and watch the whole thing!

Several rockets went into trees. One Cub Scout leader ran around, scampering up the trees like a squirrel to retrieve the errant rockets.

Here’s one of the launchers picking up Ryan’s rocket.Ryan’s rocket waiting in line.Something happened to my camera during the launch. It acted like it was out of batteries! So I didn’t get pictures of the actual launch. Sorry! Just moments after Ryan's was launched, it was fine again! Oh well!

The park has an amazing statue of Lord Robert Baden-Powell, who founded the scouting program. We thought it would be fun for Ryan to pose in front of the Lord Baden-Powell statue (and the scout oath).

Two different patches are awarded at the egg launch event: one smiling egg, awarded to boys whose eggs stay intact; and a frowning egg with cracks, awarded to boys whose eggs crack during the launch and subsequent crash landing. Ryan earned the smiling egg last year, since his egg survived the launch intact. He really wanted his egg to break this year so he could get the other patch. He was even tempted to smack the rocket against the step as we left home.

No need. With the crazy launching this year, his egg broke. The frowny-face patch put a smiley face on Ryan!