Llama Trek 2015!

This past weekend our GS troop visited Cosby, TN and the llamas (and one alpaca!) of Smoky Mountain Llama Trek.  We had a great time.  The gloomy clouds and drizzle broke apart once we got past Asheville, NC, and we had a great day.

So what is a llama trek,  you ask?  Well, basically you go hiking with a llama.  You don’t ride them – they carry your stuff.  We only went on a two mile hike, so there was nothing for them to carry.  But each girl had her own llama (and our smallest Brownie her own alpaca), and we didn’t hear one “I’m tired” or “my feet hurt” complaint!  So parents, if you don’t ever want to hear your child complain about walking, just get him or her a llama to divert her attention. 

We learned all about llama care from Steve and even had hands-on training on how to groom a llama!  We also learned that llamas all go to the bathroom in one place, and we can attest to this fact.  I won’t go into detail on that one.  But anyway, we earned the Lovely Llamas patch from the Girl Scouts of Northern California council.  I don’t know if this is kosher since I can’t find them on GSNC’s website, but here are the requirements.  You can still order the patches from the online store.

So why a llama trek?  I went on one at National Center West back in 1987 and thought it was greatest thing ever.  So when looking back at my GS memories, I thought to myself that I really wanted to do this at some point with our troop.  Our council offers overnight llama treks for the older girls, but we did this separately as a day trip.

When I first told the Brownie leader that I was planning a llama trek, she just stared at me.  I have seen this look often throughout my life, so I said, “Yes, I’m serious.”  I think that even on the way up there she still had some reservations about this trip.  But she was pleasantly surprised about how much fun it was.   I TOLD YOU, LORIAN!  😉

Here are a few pictures from our trip:

I created a picture where I had a picture of me from 1987 and then compared it to one of me from 2015 recreating the picture, but I will not subject you to it.  If you are friends with me on Facebook then you saw it, but it’s not going public.  No way, no how. 😉

I was going to comment here about a leader’s weekend we were having this weekend, but it was cancelled due to the supposed “historic” levels of heavy rain that is headed our way [*Addendum 10/4/15:  I was very wrong about our area not getting any rain.  Our area was hit hard and there was flooding, although we didn’t have anything close to what Columbia, SC and Charleston experienced.  Camp Wabak lost power at some point.  I WAS WRONG!].  I am quite skeptical, especially after the prediction of a “historic” Snowpacolypse from this past winter.  We didn’t even get rain from it.  I understand why it was cancelled due to legal reasons, but that still doesn’t help my going through the stages of grief.  I had really been looking forward to it, especially since last year was cancelled as well.  Another leader and I were supposed to present a session, but that work is down the drain.  Sigh.  I don’t think I would be as upset as I am if I had any confidence that it will be rescheduled as claimed by our council for various reasons. [I was wrong about this too.] But, you know what Thumper says (again):