Bullet the Blue Sky

Last Saturday, the peacefulness of a dry lake bed in the California high desert was shattered by the buzz of a thousand motorcycles and ATVs, kicking up dust and racing against the wind. To the north, scout troop 628 was making a noise of it's own, as the tear of model rockets pierced the sky. In the middle of the smoke and flame were three Pike boys, having the time of their lives.
Every year, the cub scouts take a trip to El Mirage recreation area to have a day of rocket launching. El Mirage is a dry lake just north of Adelanto. It is a popular place for dirt bikes, and one of the few legal places to ride OHVs. We went up with Josh and Caleb's pack, and took along an ample supply of rocket engines.

When we first got there, the boys found the trash pit where everybody dumps their garbage. They had a blast digging up treasure from under the rocks and sand. They unearthed some old TV parts, some old tin cans, and some random pieces that looked like the could have been the remains of test flights gone bad.

We had three rocket of our own, and our own launch pad. Since I had never launched rockets myself, I had fun too. But the best part was just watching the kids get excited each time one of their space ships blasted toward the clouds. We were there from about 9:00 to 1:00, and the kids never seemed to get tired of launch a rocket - chase a rocket - bring back a rocket.

When the boys got bored of fire-and-smoke rockets, Bob, the pack leader, got out he bottle rocket supplies. The kids each made a bottle rocket out of coke bottles, then used Bob's custom pneumatic launcher to blast them into the air. They didn't go as high as the engine powered rockets, but for nothing more than coke bottles with golf balls taped on, some of them got decent air.

We rounded out the day by setting up the potato gun canons. We didn't use potatoes, though, because of safety reasons. Instead the boys launched tennis balls, first for distance and accuracy, then they broke into two teams and launched balls at each other. Sometime during the battle, the older boy scouts came over and took control of the canons. Since they were unsupervised and basically being little sh*ts, I decided it was a good time to leave.

On the way home, we stopped by Uncle Joe's hanger to see what he and cousins were up to.

Family is so cool...