7/9/16 First Class Orienteering Course

      This morning as the sun was just peaking over the horizon David and I left to work on his last requirement for his Boy Scout 1st class rank. He needed to do an orienteering course that covered at least a mile and required measuring the height or width of objects. The Park of the Canals has an orienteering course built into it. The compass headings and feet between markers are recorded on a permanent sign. Little aluminum markers, about the size of a silver half dollar, let you know if you've found the correct spot. That is, once you've found one. 

       The sign with the instructions was easy to find. The first marker was not. After about 10 minutes of looking David was feeling pretty discouraged. I called Heidi to ask her to look online for ideas. We also prayed about it. A short time later a man walking his dog passed by. I asked him if he happened to know where the first marker was. Thankfully he did. The marks blend fairly well with the environment. The course itself is only about a 1/3 of a mile. Our plan was to do it forward, backwards and then forward again. As it turned out we nearly did the course 3 times the first time through. We kept having to backtrack and double check our heading and our distance. Naturally the shorter ones were easier to find but the long ones were difficult. In fact the online trail guide that Heidi found this course on labels the difficulty of this trail as "Easy and Difficult". With patience and a little ingenuity we found all the markers. We did the return circuit jogging since our time was running short. I was proud of David sticking to it even though it was hot and he was tired. David has a goal to earn his Eagle by Christmas 2017. He'll be 13 1/2 when he earns it if he makes his goal. I'm proud of his hard work and willingness to try hard things.