Dear Mom,

Our scoutmaster told us all to write to our parents in case you saw the
flood on TV and worried. We are OK. Only 1 of our tents and 2 sleeping bags got washed away. Luckily, none of us got drowned because we were all up on the mountain looking for Chad when it happened. Oh yes, please call Chad’s mother and tell her he is OK. He can’t write because of the cast. I got to ride in one of the search & rescue jeeps. It was Neat.
We never would have found him in the dark if it hadn’t been for the
lightning.

Scoutmaster Webb got mad at Chad for going on a hike alone without
telling anyone. Chad said that he did tell him, but it was during the
fire so Mr. Webb probably didn’t hear him. Did you know that if you
put gas on the fire, the gas can blow up?
The wet wood still didn’t burn, but one of our tents did. Also some of
our clothes. John is going to look weird until his hair grows back.

We will be home on Saturday if Scoutmaster Webb gets his car fixed. It
wasn’t his fault about the wreck. The brakes worked OK when we left.
Scoutmaster Webb said that with a vehicle that old you have to expect
something to break down; that’s probably why he can’t get insurance on it.
We think it’s a neat car. He doesn’t care if we get it dirty, and if
it’s hot, sometimes he lets us ride on the tailgate. It gets pretty hot
with 10 people in a car. He let us take turns riding in the trailer
until the highway patrolman stopped and talked to us.

Scoutmaster Webb is a neat guy. Don’t worry, he is a good driver. In
fact, he is teaching Terry how to drive. But he only lets him drive on
the mountain roads where there isn’t any traffic. All we ever see up
there are logging trucks. He has to spend a lot of time working on the
car so we are trying not to cause him any trouble.

This morning all of the guys were diving off the rocks and swimming out in the lake. Scoutmaster Webb wouldn’t let me because I can’t swim, and Chad was afraid he would sink because of his cast, so he let us take the canoe across the lake. It was great. You can still see some of the trees under the water from the flood. Scoutmaster Webb isn’t crabby like some scoutmasters. He didn’t even get mad about the life jackets.

Guess what? We all passed our First Aid Merit badges. When Dave dove in the lake and cut his arm, we got to see how a tourniquet works. Also Wade and I threw up. Scoutmaster Webb said it probably was just food poisoning from the leftover chicken. He said he got sick that way with the food he ate in prison. I’m glad he got out and became our
scoutmaster. He said he sure figured out how to get things done better
while he was doing time.

 I have to go now. We are going into town to mail our letters and buy some more bullets. Don’t worry about anything.

We are fine.
Love,   Cole.