Leave No Trace e-tour: Bleu in the Blue Grass State

E.P. “Tom” Sawyer State Park on the eastside of Louisville, KY was the site of the big centennial rendezvous for the Blue Grass, Lincoln Heritage, and Shawnee Trails Boy Scout Councils. It was an absolutely beautiful and mild autumn weekend, so the turnout was huge and folks were in exceptionally good spirits. Estimated crowd size ranged upwards of 12,000 scout and parents. We set up our camper and Subaru at the entrance to the exhibition midway next to our event host, Dan Thompson of Troop 111 from Lexington, who is the Blue Grass Council's Outdoor Ethics Advocate. Dan created an amazing Leave No Trace maze for the troops to navigate, while we used the high profile Subaru and Coleman pop-up as the marquee for our joint Leave No Trace activity area.

It seemed that we were busy from the time that we arrived on Friday until our Sunday departure. Dan was a great host, and the event was well planned and executed. Friday night there was a warm-up concert on the main event stage, and even then we were button-holed by a number of folks who expected to be too busy with their own exhibits on Saturday to drop by our encampment. On Saturday, our day began early as we were visited well before sunup by a scout who was eagerly reporting for volunteer duty at Dan’s maze. By first light, the array of activities in our neighborhood had begun in earnest, and from that point forward we had a steady stream of customers all day. The day was capped off with an evening of great bluegrass music that provided an accompaniment for the choreography of a 12 bag and basket hot-air balloon glow.

On the gastronomic front, Dan’s troop also shared their lunch with us on Saturday as well as a fantastic meal on Saturday night: chicken cordon bleu, brown rice, fresh snap beans, and baked raisin-cinnamon apples for dessert. Whoa! It was some good! We tried to recruit the troop’s incomparable gourmet chef, Don, to travel with us in our Coleman pop-up’s guest bedroom…