It's the details you notice on a camping trip. Yes, there are grand sweeps of scenery – the broad river winding between the green fields and forests of two states; the cliffs above the western shore, marking the geologic fault that created the valley long ago; the marching cumuli with their black, wet bellies – but without the minute details within a few feet's radius, the experience would be bland and incomplete.

A stowaway spider, for example, who climbed into our canoe one night hid unnoticed in a some recess and emerged during the day. It walked cautiously along the left gunwale, seeming to watch New Hampshire go by as we carried it downriver, far from its home. I wondered how different the scene might appear to a creature with eight eyes.

It's the morning after the last night of a three-nighter by canoe with a troop of Boy Scouts from Montpelier. The night began with an artillery barrage to our south, as the Town of Rockingham celebrated Old Home Days, firing rockets into the lowering skies. In the silence afterward, I listened to the rain and silently regretted failing to put a cooking pot under the edge of the kitchen tarp to catch the runoff and augment our shrinking water supply. The benefit didn't seem to outweigh the discomfort, so I stayed put. Then, when I finally did have to get up, shortly before four, the rain had eased a bit. But I did notice another lovely detail: The manufacturer of my tent used plastic zipper pulls that glow brightly in the dark. What a great idea!

I think this trip was probably advertised as a beginners' trip: three summer nights of camping, two easy days (depending on wind and weather) of downriver paddling, and no portages. We drove in convoy with the canoe trailer to Wilgus State Park, on the Vermont side of the river. With 17 campsites, ranging from open space for tenting to leantos and cabins, it was gratifyingly quiet. The hospitable staff probably had a lot to do with that: soft-spoken, friendly, and scooting about in almost silent golf carts to check up on things. We strung up our big blue cooking tarp and started supper while two of us adults ferried a car downstream twenty miles or so to Herricks Cove, at the mouth of the Williams River in Rockingham. After dark, the ranger, Eric Hanson, came by to give us the next day's weather forecast, as well as the dam release schedule. Next morning he reappeared, to give us a few bass and pike lures that he said (correctly) would prove irresistible.

Establishing canoeist-friendly campsites along the river has been quite a job. Besides finding riverbanks that can be climbed and descended with packs and boats without degrading the soft banks themselves, and then obtaining property owners' permission, there's the additional fact that the Connecticut River valley has been a thoroughfare since before the arrival of Europeans. The original First Nation trails on both sides of the river became settlers' trails, then oxcart and horse roads. River-driving loggers used them for tote roads. Now both sides of the river are hemmed by state and federal highways, railroad tracks, and an interstate highway. Finding spots for tenting between the edge of the river and the traffic beyond is a bit of a treasure hunt. But if our scouts were troubled by the rumble of tires and occasional locomotive wheels, they certainly didn't show it. Their own interaction was so noisy, they probably never heard it.

But they were amazing at spotting tiny living creatures, from a peaceful cicada (which would be eaten with relish in many parts of the world) to a leech, a toad, and several large black-and-yellow garden spiders wandering through the tall grass. The kids' instinct to kill was restrained by their tendency to look over their shoulders to see how the adults would feel about it. Sinner that I was at their age – I owe the animal kingdom a huge debt for adolescent transgressions – I invariably voted loudly for life, and the little critters were allowed to return to their natural routines.

The valley is a birders' paradise, as well. We watched bald eagles, both adult and immature, which is a good sign. Kingfishers, sandpipers, blackbirds, black ducks, great blue herons – the river seemed lined with them. At the second night's campsite at the mouth of the Little Sugar River, a large white wading bird flew over and landed in a dead tree across the stream. A great egret. I don't think it's on my life list at home. In any case, it is now.

It's been almost sixty years since I was a Boy Scout. On the other hand, "was" isn't the right word. My Scoutmaster, as he pinned to my chest my Life Scout badge, said, "Once a Scout, always a Scout." And he was right. I may have forgotten whether my buddies and I were as noisy as these kids (surely we were); I may not have done a Good Turn daily since 1949; and I may deplore the heavy influence of Mormonism on the national Scout board that continues to discriminate against membership for gays. But lying awake during the night, lamenting the lump beneath my thoracic vertebrae and thinking about the morning meeting just before we start home, I discovered that the words, at least, were all still there, at least in my half-consciousness: "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty..." and the twelve virtues of a Scout: Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly..." They'd be good words to ponder as we plunged back into our lives.