is boring. Well, not necessarily boring, but almost all the trips disappear, pack and den meetings are carefully choreographed disasters of social distancing (always) and mask wearing (when indoors at least), and everyone gets the feeling that scouting is just not what it used to be.

This evening, we had the final pack meeting of the year before the crossing over ceremony later in the month, when E and the other bears move up to Weblos. After that portion of the meeting, we adults talked about what trips we might take next year. Some of the decisions we made:

• Overnight at the Lost Sea, billed as America’s largest underground lake
• Overnight at an aquarium, sleeping in the shark tunnel with sharks swimming all around us
• A hike to the top of Table Rock, a local formation here in the Upstate
• A winter tubing adventure

I told the Boy about these things as we drove home. “I definitely want to sign up next year!”