We got to bed around 10pm, and were well asleep before it started raining in the middle of the night. The rain persisted into the morning, and we had to pack up camp in pouring rain.
We headed over to Magness Tree Farm where the Columbia River Orienteering Club was holding their annual Vampire-O Orienteering event. We did some basic orineteering compass training, and then attempted an easy white course.
Orienteering is an organized sport that consists of locating a series of checkpoints on a map, using map reading and compass skills to find those locations in the real world, and then walk or run to those points in order, and upon finding them (marked with orange and white flags), use the provided stamp to mark your score sheet. There are points for visiting the right location (called a control point), and also for speed (so running and jogging are recommended.)
The white course was about a mile, only had 6 controls, and was pretty fun and easy.
We had lunch and then started the next event, the Vampire-O. Instead of visiting controls in a specified order, we were given a map with 30 controls on it, and had to visit as many as we could in an hour in any order we wanted. BUT, there were 3 participants who were assigned as Vampires. They were given score cards just like everyone else, but instead of visiting control points, they had to "attack" a participant by shouting 'vampire attack'. When the campire did this, they took the scorecard from the participant, and the attackee became the new vampire and ran off to find fresh "prey".
Most of the boys got vampire attacked a few times, and handed out their fair share of attacks. Everyone got a really good workout and had a great time. I think we are all much better at reading maps for being there, and got a lot of the Orienteering merit badge done.
We all headed home in the early afternoon in time for some trick or treating.
