The Long, Long, Long Camping Trip

This weekend was our longest camping trip ever.

We ran out of clean clothes.   We ran out of water.  Our black water overfloweth (a little trailer talk for you).

We did not run out of firewood.

Or food.

Our camping group was a little smaller this time.  David’s parents were in Alaska on vacation and Jack, Lisa, and Little Miss stayed back because Jack was sick.  So, it was just David and I and the kids, my parents, David’s brothers Jason and Alex, and a friend, Mike.  My sister came for 2 nights, Jack and Lisa ended up coming for Sunday, and my Uncle Greg and cousin Greg (aka The Gregs) came Sunday evening.

This will be a terribly long post.  I apologize.  But so much happened. 

And I must share it all with you. 

Because I must believe that you care.

You do care, don’t you?

I have been at a loss as to how to present this fantastic trip to you.  Top ten?  Stories?  Just pictures? 

Well, I am going to make it painfully long and just tell you EVERYTHING that happened, in chronological order.

Thursday night-we arrived.

Nothing happened.  We ate dinner.  We visited.  Alex hadn’t arrived yet.  That is probably why nothing happened.

Friday morning:

Jason, Mike, Daisy Mae, and the Lumberjack went wood cutting just to get wood for the fire.  The Lumberjack brought some wood from home already, but whenever he is near any sort of foresty-terrain, he must conquer it.  While they were gone, Daisy Mae apparently shot a gun.  Great.  She is a redneck, too.

Jason and Mike went to town (St. Maries) to buy stuff.

My parents and Sweet Pea went to town to buy stuff.

Alex arrived, fashionably late as usual.

Everyone came back, we ate lunch, and we went to the river.

My mom is always “aghast” when my kids are wearing stuff that is too snug for them.  While Sweet Pea was in town with them, she talked my mom into buying her a new swimsuit from a consignment store since hers was too small.  It was a size 7/8.  Check Sweet Pea out in the next couple of river pictures.  Who votes that mom got confused and bought her a size 7/8 juniors instead of 7/8 girls?

 

Poor Daisy Mae. 

 She was off being a lumberjack with her dad and missed out on a new swimsuit.

Eventually, the Boys (Jason and Alex) got bored and had to build something.  These are the same guys who have to build massive teeter-totters and swingsets out of logs.  They were feeling a little artsy this trip and built a sculpture(?) with a piece of rusted scrap steel they found abandoned by the river.  Please notice the swimsuit.

Poor Sweet Pea got a little too close to the work of art.  I helped her clean up, after I snapped a picture, of course.

Swimsuit.

Sculpture.

Jason riding his bike into the river past the completed sculpture.

I do not know why he rode his bike into the river.

I also do not know why Alex drove his truck into the river. 

Show-off.

Oops.  Forgot to put it into 4 wheel drive there, Big-A.

Jason had to crawl out and “lock the hubs” to put it into 4-wheel drive.

Alex got his truck out of the river.  And then 15 seconds later his truck would move no more.

 

A friendly fellow camper/mechanic hopped on his 4 wheeler to offer some much needed help.

After a lot of peering into the engine, all they found was a lot of water and this strange bug.

Jason:  Hey, Alex!  Did you know your gas cap was off?

Alex:  What?  No way!

Everyone else withing a 1 mile radius:  You drove your truck into the river without a gas cap on?

David had to tow Alex out of the way of the other campers so Alex could fix his gas problem.

This makes David feel manly. 

Towing, towing, towing.

Alex had to dump an undisclosed amount of gas in an undisclosed location.

Alex then had to put new gas, free of river water, into his truck.

Alex’s truck is expected to make a complete recovery.

And that pretty much wraps up Friday.

Saturday:

We took our 2nd annual hike to Crystal Lake.  We have to drive 10 miles up into the mountains to get to the start of the hiking trail.

And we got a flat tire.

Starting off on our hike.

Alex decided to take a different route with my boy.

Please don’t do anything stupid, Alex.  You have my boy.

At this point, I am worried about bears, mountain lions, rock slides, Alex being in charge of one of my boys, and having to go to the bathroom with no toilet nearby.

After 1 hour and 20 minutes, we made it to the lake.  We lost my parents about 20 minutes into it.  They turned back.  It was a pretty tough hike. KThe girls had emotional meltdowns and begged for snacks.  I was feeling lightheaded because I drank no water.  Remember, I am hoping to avoid any potty breaks, for there are no suitable potty conditions on a mountain.

Apparently, all my fears of bears and mountain lions were in vain.  No creature is a match for these boys.  Not even fish.

Clearly, I did not make sure Daisy Mae was wearing appropriate hiking shoes.

Poor thing.  She made it the whole way on Old Navy $2.50 flip flops.

I would like everyone to know that I successfully rotated this picture.  Thank you.

Crystal Lake

David disturbing the peace.

 

One of Daisy Mae’s many meltdowns.

I do not blame her.

Have you ever had to hike into a mountain lake wearing $2.50 flip flops?

We made it back in 40 minutes.  We are not sure why we were so much faster on the way back.

Daisy Mae had a complete falling out at the last leg of the hike and Jason let her ride on his shoulders.

What an uncle!

Here we are driving down the mountain from our fab hike.

This is a shot of David scouting for trees to fall/fell/whatever.

Notice he is not wearing a seatbelt and he has a gun nearby.

Darn our luck, he found something.  Now we have to all pull over and be lumberjacks.

First, we admire our find.

Dude.  That is an awesome piece of cedar.

Dude.  I know.

Then, we wrap cable around it.

Dude.  This is so fun.

Then we (and when I say we, I mean them, not me) attach aforementioned cable to Jason’s truck.

 

Now, we must cut the log into rounds.  Thrilling.

 

So, we got back to the campsite.  Meagan had arrived. The manly men were feeling quite dirty, so they were talking about baths.

Jason and Mike went to town.  Again.  To get soap.

I offered them soap.

They declined and still went to town.

They must have a honey in town.

When they returned it was time for a bath in the river.

Jason forgot a towel, so he bought a Sham-Wow! instead.

He’s saying “wow” everytime.

Everyone was clean and tired.

We ate and went to bed.

Sunday:

We woke up to tons and tons of rain.  We were the envy of the entire campground.  Not only did we have David’s parachute, but the manly men all draped tarps up everywhere so we had our own little covered kingdom.  Plus, we had a cord of wood and a bonfire.  The camp host wanted to take our picture and keep it in his memory book.

Jack, Lisa, and Little Miss joined us for the day.  David and Alex took them blackberry picking.

I stayed behind.

I loathe blackberry picking as much as I loathe huckleberry picking and breastfeeding.

Jason and Mike went to town.

Then we had some more excitement, brought to you by Alex.

 Alex was playing with the parachute and knocked the whole thing down.  We had to evacuate our kingdom immediately.

For if we stayed in our kingdom, we would perish.

My parents sent my sister over with the fire extinguisher.

My lumberjackish in-laws just laughed at them.

The lumberjacks do not understand my family.

My family does not undestand the lumberjacks.

Nobody understands Alex.

We are all learning tolerance.

We finished up the night by going to town (yes, Jason and Mike went again) to see the fireworks.

And that concludes my extremely long post.

I hope you stayed with me to the end!