The Last Man Standing

This past weekend was the “Dad and Lad” camp in. 50 Dad’s and their cub scout sons paid $75.00 to ride a bus from Tulsa to Oklahoma City to stay overnight in a science museum called the “Omniplex”. All this included a catered barbecue dinner, science demonstrations, and activities, which included an all night movie marathon…… A young boys dream.

I had just come off an all night call in the hospital the night before so another all nighter was going to test my endurance.

Braden and I started the trip on a bad note when I refused to let him bring his Lego collection along with him. “Come on, there is plenty of things to do there. The Legos stay at home“. He is a Lego fanatic but that’s a topic of a different blog. Needless to say, he was not happy with me, but once we arrived at our destination, he quickly forgot about the Legos.

A science demonstration was by a spunky college student who drove a Segway. He performed some explosive chemical reactions with hydrogen gas, liquid nitrogen and other substances. This guy seemed to have a crazy effect on the boys. They were going nuts and dancing in the isles while explosions kept me awake.

The museum was filled with all kinds of artifacts from moon rocks to F16 jets and I enjoyed just touring it on my own as Braden took part in his own personal hands on experiments. He chose to sleep under an indoor tree house with his buddies so I looked for a more secluded quiet spot.

By 10pm, I was dragging and found a quiet place to lay down behind a snack bar that looked like it hadn’t been used for a while. I slept well but, unfortunately, the lights came on at 5:30 am when a man and his grandmother had arrived with our breakfast of coffee, donuts, and cereal. Figures…I had picked the worst place in the museum to crash. Oh well, I get up at that time anyway, so I packed up my stuff and moved out of their way.

I went into the theater to see what was going on there. I found one boy still up watching the movie “Cars”. I asked him if he had been up all night and he said “yes”. I was impressed. I told him we should give him a medal or trophy for being the last man standing. That’s Ethan Baskin pictured above.

Ethan and I ate breakfast together while the rest of the crew was awakened at 6:20 am. We were back on the bus by 7:45am and back in Tulsa by 9:30am.

It was a fun and educational time and I was glad that we stayed inside vs. outside. It’s kind of chilly out there now. Last summer, Dana went on a Mother and son campout with Braden. This indoor thing at the science museum was cushier and I feel I got the better end of the deal.

Now it’s time to get some sleep and get rid of this crick I have in my neck.