Rain. He can always remember the rain, and how it has added or subtracted from various experiences. When you’re high and dry, it matters not. When you’re too dry, it matters most. When you’re trying to stay dry, it can be a long night.
He had been instructed to sleep on the ground, in his bag, and under a single 5’x8’ tarp. The Boy Scouts insist on these experiences for obvious reasons. Not obvious to him at the time though. Impending rain caused him to apply serious thought to the idea of a trench around his bag. On a slope, just a few feet from the lakes edge, it would serve to channel the rainwater away from him, and to the lake, where it belonged. So he got up while others slept and utilized his folding scout shovel to do just that. After, he slid down in his bag, secure in his water diversion plan.
He first woke to the large intermittent raindrops on the tarpaulin. No worries. As the rain became more consistent, and then begin to increase in intensity, he peeked out to see how the diversion trench was performing. It was then he thought that a dike or berm around him might have worked better. So far so good anyway.
After a couple hours of downpour he awoke to a strange sensation. He felt like he was floating. Now he could hear other scouts rumbling around and complaining, and finally he stuck his head out of his tightly synched bag, to find a surprise. The trench had filled in and his sleeping area had become a detention area filled with water. He literally could have drowned in the six inches of water that was now floating his sleeping bag.
Rather than appear ill-planned, he just decided to roll out of his little lake on to the ground nearby and just sleep in the rain, like a real boy scout. So in the dark of night he rolled over a couple more times until he felt solid ground, albeit momentarily. Suddenly he heard a splash and realized that he had rolled and slid into the actual lake.
After struggling for a couple minutes to get out of that soaked bag, he just stood there knee deep in the lake, in the steady rain, and started to laugh.
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