The last camp out for the year was a great time had by all. The Mighty Lakota had 26 Dads and Princesses attend Dos Picos. Friday night dinner Lakota enjoyed the company of the Cottontails tribe and some “love thy neighbor” action. We all especially loved the Italian beef sandwiches that started off our low cal gastronomic weekend.

Saturday was a fun-filled eventful day that started with Ramon’s famous breakfast burritos. Then the tribe took a hike that lead us to a lake and an exercise course where the princess had a good time doing setups, leg ups and pushups. Once we got back to camp, we put together the high tech chariot that has been used by our sister and brother tribes over the years. The Princess’s had a fun experience with the chariot by test driving it and each taking turns at the helm.

After speaking to the Park Ranger about how we could help out, he suggested we do two things – pick up recyclables and water the new trees in the campground. The tribe split up into 3 groups and went through the whole camp ground to pick up recyclable items and sort them in the bins. Later we got to the trees, saving the Park Rangers some time and effort.

The home made ice cream project by the Chumash was next on the agenda. Each Princess received a large zip lock bag with rock salt, ice and a smaller zip lock bag to place into the larger one that contained the heavy sweet cream mix that turned into real ice cream. The trick was to not have the Dad’s hands fall off from freezing before the cream mix turned into the ice cream. We all managed to churn it out to the delight of our princesses.

The girls enjoyed the “slip and slide” and the soaking by the fire crew. Our own Matt Regan fulfilled a childhood dream of walking directly into the fire hose stream as long as he could take the stinging stream on his head.

The chariot races were next on the day’s long list of items. We had a chariot procession and then the races (or walking chariot races) began. We completed one full round of races before the first causality then we call it a day.

Dinner was another enjoyable meal with Teflon Frank leading the crew cooking Tri-tip and corn on the cob. The Nation camp fire held several surprises where the Nation found out who our next Nation Chief and Med Man would be. We also met our Tribal chiefs for next year.

Later that night at the Lakota tribal camp fire, Edmund Ozorio. our only veteran who was bouncing out, taught the few remaining dads who were playing Euchre a valuable lesson… NEVER FALL ASLEEP AT A TRIBAL CAMP FIRE!

Edmond fell asleep still holding onto his red cup. We pried the red cup out of his hand and his open “kung fu grip” allowed us to place numerous other items into his hand while taking pictures and trying not to wake him up by our laughter. Thanks for the memories Edmond! We’ll miss you and Emily next year!

Sunday Breakfast ended our low cal gastronomic weekend with next years chief, Blue Wolf, preparing pancakes and his classic “Heart Attack” breakfast sandwiches. We attended Zocolo where the bounce out ceremony was a hit with the princesses.

Thanks chief for a job well done this year!

Iceman