AB100 meets the wild west in San Antone

Life is what you make make it. That pretty much sums up my Adventure Base 100 experience. I'll talk about that portion later or not at all.

AB100 was not a standalone event for the Alamo city. Yet they managed to place the AB100 in an area of the rodeo grounds that received little to no traffic. I think they could have found a better place for us.

The patch above is the only thing that is exclusive to AB100. Our store staff said they had trouble getting the patches. The Adventure base showed up Thursday the 4th, but the patches showed up late in the afternoon on the 6th. So we had the patches for 1 day of the Bases four day stay. If you register for an AB100 passport you get $5.00 of a souvenir book. so for $20 you get a book and the patch.

The museum was cool. I thought some councils could have put more in their time capsule. Heck it would have been nice if my council had submitted a time capsule. Some of the items were a CD-Rom, a belt buckle, a custom coin, and some OA flaps. I rocked the early morning evironmental Pinewood race with a score of 390.

When you get in the go scouting dome go in front of the table and lay down on your back. The show displays up past the top of the dome. In side you feel kinda like your in an igloo and at a forest campsite. It was a nice 5 minute show.

Many scouters took advantage of the green screen. Your white water rafting or rock climbing. I think I saw one dad getting carried up the rock face by his Webelos scout. What I could do there with a little more time and imagination.

The penny press breaks at the drop of a hat. I really wish they had more than one press traveling with the show.

The ropes course was awesome as an attention getter. Can I order one for my council? Ok for the walk through... once harnessed up you walk up the ramp around and over some teeter totter blocks. Around the next corner is swing steps. The next challenge is Swinging across the vines to the cargo net. Once you side step across the cargo net you jump off a box and "zip line" down to where you harnessed up.

Since most places haven't had this yet. I'll let you know that you need about 20 volunteers minimum to help run the AB100. Please make sure your council has somebody that is good at scheduling people to run this. Nothing worse in my opinion than to have 15 Explorers show up and have nothing for them to do.

I would like to give special recognition to SAPD Chief William McManus. Prior to Chief McManus, SAPD had Explorers, but nothing like they do now. San Antonio has 180 police explorers in part due to the Chief's mandate that every substation or precinct have an explorer post. I have no doubt that these explorers will turn out to be fine officers in one of the nations law enforcement agencies. More importantly to me, it is just another way that the SAPD shows a compassionate face to San Antonio.