Brevard Youth Sports
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Osceola Sportsman Association Sportsman Show Review
3/15/08- Our first review is from the Osceola Sportsman Association Sportsman Show in Kenansville which was held March 14th and 15th. This is the second year my son and I have attended the show and we have looked forward to it all year. The trip over to Kenansville takes just under an hour from Palm Bay or Melbourne and this year we got to smell the orange blossoms blooming almost as soon as we turned south off of 192. Once we got closer to the show there were signs letting us know how much further we had to go. The show was set up a little different than last year. At last years show we camped about a 1/4 mile away from the show and the dinner was served next to the camping area. This year the dinner was served within the show area and the camping area was inside a large group of oak trees situated out in the middle of the sod farm on which the show is held. Ethan and I decided not to head out to the camping area first to set up since we were going to use a tent made by ENEL (l would like to thank ENEL for donating the tent which will be used for all future campground reviews!) that mounted right to the bed of my truck. We would have been driving around with the tent set up and I did not want to test the integrity of the tent that way (as you will see even the best laid plans can get messed up). We walked over to the show and looked around to see what we could do before dinner. Ethan grabbed a cane pole in the kids fishing area and tossed a piece of hot dog to the pond full of catfish. We tried a few different spots and only had a bite (last year he caught two nice catfish). He was ready to go see some of the farm equipment, UTV's, and four wheelers that were brought by a variety of vendors. We came across a tent where kids could try their luck at hitting paper targets with BB guns. First every child had to watch a short video about gun safety and then answer a few questions before being allowed to don the safety glasses and shoot the air rifles. There were instructors for every child and that was the first time Ethan shot an air rifle. We watched a few R/C truck races and I noticed the sky starting to get a little ominous with clouds beginning to build. After deciding to set up the truck tent before the rain started (yes we were going to set out the integrity of the tent when we drove to the camping are a later), we headed back to the parking area (as it began to sprinkle) to tackle setting up a tent that had just arrived that afternoon. Setting up the tent seemed to be a breeze at first until it began to collapse after we had strapped it down and put up all the poles. I had not looked at the instructions and missed one very important thing (there are little straps that attach to the inside of the truck bed that need to be firmly attached for the tent to stay up). Now fully informed on how to set up the tent, we had it up in under five minutes. It was then time to head back over to the show for the wild game dinner (read more on that below the photos). The sun was going down by the time we ate dinner and we figured it would be a good idea to head over to the camping area before it got dark. Knowing that the truck tent was our shelter for the night and not knowing how it would handle the drive through the sod farm, I was a little nervous as we traversed the sandy path out to the camping area. We only drove about 15 mph, but the tent did not even budge! As we drove through the oak trees on our way to find a place to call home for the night, we were stopped twice by campers asking where we had purchased the tent on the truck. With some bad weather on the way I guess sleeping in a shelter off the ground was looking more and more like dad had an Einstein moment. We found a nice spot and set up our portable tables so we could light our lanterns since it was now getting very dark. We inflated the queen size air mattress which filled up the bed of the truck (note to self: next time don't put the inflating nozzle on the mattress up against the cab of the truck so that I have to crawl under the mattress to get out of the tent) and got our sleeping bags ready for the night. There was plenty of room inside the tent to move around and there was more than adequate head room. One thing we were missing from last years trip was Jiffy Pop pop corn. We searched all over for some Jiffy Pop, but could not find any (one of Ethan's favorite things to do while camping is to cook some Jiffy Pop over a fire or our camp stove). Now the rain started to come down pretty bad and we figured that we would just hang out in the tent since it was now 8:30 anyway. I turned off the lanterns and broke out the games and the cure for bored kids while camping. We have one of those portable generators that you can use to jump your car battery when it runs down and it has 12 as well as 110 volt outlets on it so you can power small electronic devices. Well what a lifesaver that thing can be when you want to watch a movie in your tent! We watched part of a movie while snacking on Pringles (our Jiffy Pop substitute) until Ethan started dozing off. Now throughout the night there were frequent periods of very heavy rain and quite a bit of wind. Never once did the tent shake in the wind (now whether that is because of the tents great construction or my expert placing of the truck out of the wind is yet to be determined) or did we get a drop of rain on us. The rain fly on the tent also covered the tailgate of the truck and we were able to sit on the tailgate to grab a drink out of the cooler (which rested outside of the tent on the tailgate) or to put shoes on for the walk through the trees when nature called (this was in the middle of a sod farm after all). We woke up Saturday morning and had the tent put away in under five minutes. At the show Ethan tried his luck with the catfish again but once again we only managed to feed them a bunch of bites of hot dog. We then walked out to the archery range and Ethan hit the target more than he missed it with the help of one of the instructors. After climbing into just about every tractor and RV we went back over to the air rifle tent for another round of target practice. Then it was off to the beef jerky vendor for a quick treat. We hit several of the food vendors (there is something for everyone) and it was time for another quick walk around the show before we had to head back home. Ethan decided not to test the rock climbing wall and we gave our remaining tickets to another family as our time at the show ran out. Here are some of the other things to do at the show that we did not have time to do; swamp buggy ride (we did this last year and it was one of Ethan's favorite things we did), monster truck ride and demo, (we rode the monster truck and watched the show twice last year), Trap and skeet shooting for the adults, helicopter rides (did this last year, but it is not cheap), and there are plenty of demos (turkey calling was our favorite) put on throughout the show. I am sure there are several things I am missing and you can visit the Osceola Sportsman Association website for complete info. Once again we cannot wait until next years show and we hope to see many more Brevard County residents out there. Many thanks to the Osceola Sportsman Association for putting on such a great event!
We enjoyed the variety of food at last years show and that was what we looked forward to the most for the show this year. If you look at the picture below, I will let you know what we had. At the top of the plate there is fried gator tail (very mild and not tough or chewy at all), Fried catfish (not even a hint of fishy flavor), Venison wrapped in bacon (our favorite both years), under the venison was fried mountain lion (not a typo as we had this last year also and like last year it was very good, but extremely tough), moving clockwise covered in BBQ sauce was a small pile of wild hog ribs (not very meaty, but interesting), underneath the ribs there was a portion of very tasty wild hog meat (our 2nd favorite both years), and a spoonful of baked beans rounded out the dinner. We found a dry spot on the grass and both of us finished our plates (Ethan took one of my bacon wrapped venison pieces). We could have gone back for seconds, but there was enough on our plates to fill us up. Like last year we are already looking forward to next years wild game dinner. There was one thing missing from last year that Ethan had been waiting for was frog legs. Kermit had better watch out as we will take care of that this week.
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