Brady Lake Drill Weekend

Brady Lake Drill Weekend

This weekend was drill weekend for Riley and the Sea Cadets. They had been planning this for a while, and Riley was so looking forward to it! We were a little disappointed because there was supposed to be some re-enactors coming to ambush the cadets, and that wasn't able to happen, but they all still had a great time.

I went back and forth about whether Regan and I should go, since we had our big Girl Scout camp out last weekend, I wasn't sure about another weekend away, and this one a little more "rustic" than what we're used to. But, I had heard there was a pool, so I figured if nothing else, Regan and I can chill poolside for the weekend, let the boys run around with their guns, we're good.

Well, things didn't exactly work out like we planned! Our cabin was supposed to have a refrigerator, so we took David's car and packed it to the gills and didn't bring any food. Thinking we would just get food there and put it in the fridge. We had the option of eating with the cadets, but with me being gluten free these days, I didn't want to pay them for food that I might not be able to eat. So, we ended up buying a styrofoam ice chest at Walmart in town to hold some food for us for the weekend.

We stopped at Cooper's on the way down, David's absolute favorite place to eat in the world, and had some leftovers that we put in our new ice chest! Got to Brady and had no cell service, couldn't even use the GPS on our phones to find out how to get to the lake! Finally found it, got unloaded in our fancy cabin (not). But hey, the a/c worked great! A little too great. We got our beds out and got Riley settled with the cadets, and then went to sleep.

The next morning, the cadets were up bright and early around 6:30 for breakfast (or chow, nothing is called what it really is in the military). We slept in a little later, seeing as how we were on "vacation" and Regan had me bring her to the bathroom a quarter of a mile away in the middle of the night and I couldn't go back to sleep after that!

But, we got up and got moving and realized something, there isn't a pool here. Not one around for miles and miles. And the one thing Regan really wanted to do was fish. But...we didn't have room for the fishing poles in the car, and we thought about just buying a cheap one, but then found out the lake was so low and they had a problem with red algae, and dead fish all over, so we figured fishing was probably not gonna happen. She was so disappointed. And then we really did have nothing to do. We went into town for lunch (more BBQ, I think that's the only thing people eat in west Texas) and picked up a movie from the Red Box for Regan to watch on David's laptop.

We hung around some of the other cadet's parents that were there also, but overall, we just sat there. There was a playground so Regan could swing or slide, but no one to swing or slide with! We walked around and explored the marina, which Regan thought was haunted since the water was so low and no one has used it in so long, there were spider webs everywhere!

The cadets had training in how to make shelter, how to make fire (which led to how to make s'mores) and how to navigate by the stars, and they did "colors" every day, which is basically raising the flag.  The Chief of Police came out and spoke to the cadets about leadership, and what it takes to make it in the world of law enforcement, and life in general. He was great, and I even took notes, he had a lot of great things to tell the cadets.  And it was so cute to see Riley running around in his camo gear, I mean, BDU's.  He did forget his hat though, and had to borrow one from Lt. Foster!

On Saturday night, we started a fire and heated up our BBQ leftovers and ate in our cabin. That was a fun meal of trying to cook without any of the proper utensils or pans! But it was fun, and we fed our leftovers to the cats (there were tons of stray cats all over the place!) and then stood in our window and watched the cats run off with huge pieces of sausage and chicken!

Then on Sunday we went to the gun range. It was fun, they had 14 different guns to shoot. They each got a lesson on each gun, how to shoot it, load it, sight it, etc. We brought a couple too, so Regan got to shoot some also. I don't even know all the guns they had! AK-47, Garand, Mauser, that's about all I remember. Regan and I stayed and shot for a while, then she wanted to walk back to the cabin and start packing up, so we did, and as soon as they were done at the gun range, it was time to load up and head home. It took a while to get everything packed back into the car, but we did it, and hit Cooper's one more time on the way home!

Riley had a blast, was super tired, and super dirty. He is loving Sea Cadets though, and all the opportunities it's giving him. He has some really great people that give up their time to teach them all this stuff, so I'm so glad he is able to be a part of this great organization!