Day 11 – The Barrels

So up early at 6 to shower and get ready to leave site at 7, me and Chris had planned to go up to the shooting, it’s an hours walk up hill or a 30 min walk on the flat to the bus stop.

We decided to walk to the bus, wrong call! The queue was massive

We ended up waiting an hour and a half to get the bus up to the Barrels which is the shooting area for the Jamboree, here they can shoot, shot guns, rifles up to .308 and hand guns up to 9mm.

We went through the 2 safety briefing pretty quickly then joined the queue for the handguns, one of the instructors told us it was probably 2+ hours wait time.

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After over an hours wait the sky started to darken and the thunder sounded, “ceasefire” all shooting stops when lightening is detected with 8 miles.

We were herded into one of the tents to wait out the storm

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After the storm we were ready to line up again they have to wait 30 minutes from the last lightening strike before the all clear is given, sadly after 20 minutes another clap of the under and the clock reset.

Lots of strikes of lightening strikes on site

Another 30 minute wait and the all clear was given and we lines up again, luckily a large number of people had decided to leave so we were much closer to the front and within an hour we were shooting.

Firstly .22 pistol on a paper target

Then .22 on a large metal target, then .22 on small metal targets, then the big stuff šŸ˜€. 9mm on metal static plates and finally 9mm on shoot down metal targets.

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We then headed to the rifle briefing but half way through thunder sounded and the ceasefire was sounded, we decided to walk back to site.

Stopping on the way to hide from the storm, once it cleared we walked back stopping to chat to a State Trooper on the way down.

Some other interesting things that have become familar on the way back

Power Distribution boards, branded SBR are dotted around site these are used to transfer power around soem Scouts have tried to plug their phones into these to have them fried due to the power!

They should be using the charging stations, a great meeting place for the Scouts whilst their items charge

Ice Containers, we are allowed 2 packs of ice in the morning and 2 in the evening for use in the cool box or drinks depending on wha we need.

And of course any American site would be incomplete without a Coke/Pepsi machine

In the evening myself and Alex headed off to the Adult Badge Swapping, for some this is a massive part of the Jamboree and the spend all their free time doing this, for me I have a shed load of UK Badges. I was keen to swap them for badges from other adults I meet, you also get to chat to some interesting people and explain the Severn Boars and where we are from.