Meat Retreat Twenty12

For the second time, I got to participate in my church's Meat Retreat for the High School Boys Youth Group. What is the Meat Retreat? Well... It's a retreat devoted to one primary activity: eating meat, plus some other things. Here are the highlights of this weekend. Thanks to Keith and Steve for letting me steal your photos.

We hold the retreat in Bend, Oregon. So we piled all the boys (19 of them) into the church's yellow bus and headed over.

But first we stop at A&W in Sweet Home and consume some meat... and lots of Root Beer.

We stay at Tumalo State Park in one of the group campsites. It's a semi-sucluded place where boys can be boys. By the time we get there, set up, and go shopping for meat, it's time for bed.

The next day we wake up and eat meat. Then we split into two groups. One goes mountain bike riding. The other goes Frisbee Golfing. Then we all come back, and eat more meat for lunch.

The afternoon is spent playing kickball / softball. It's a pretty fun time.

Here's a good picture of the group of boys:

And here's another picture of some guys... Boys will be boys.

We also played Buck Buck. According to Wikipedia, Buck Buck was started in Europe in the 1600s with one group of players jumping on the backs of another group of players with the goal of toppling the whole group. Yep. Bill Cosby even joked about it in his 1967 album Revenge where he introduced Fat Albert as "the baddest Buck Buck breaker in the world". Here's a visual of how it's played:

Group one locks waists to form a strong foundation.

Then players from the other team jump on top.

Eventually more players start to stack on top.

Finally, the supporting group tumbles under the weight. Hilarious.

OK. Back to what we did. That night, we headed over to Safeway to consume ice cream. America's Got Talent played on a near-by TV, which captured most of our attention. That guy with the earth harp? Amazing!

Then we headed back to the campground, started a fire, and chatted for a bit.

 The next morning we woke up and ate... more meat!

 We then headed over to Smith Rock and hiked to the top.

It's an amazing view.

 So there you go. That's the Meat Retreat. Lots of meat, lots of fun.