Finally, our first camping trip of the season! We joined the Gregoriches, Flynns and Eric and Emily at Gone Creek campground two weekends ago. Thanks to Megan's great planning and early reservations, we had great sites leading right up to Timothy Lake. The weather was perfect- in the 80's during the day but cooling off quite a bit at night.
We arrived Friday evening and set up camp. We ate sandwiches while driving there, so we didn't need to worry about cooking. We hung out, had some refreshments and enjoyed good company and beautiful surroundings. Maddy stayed up pretty late and it was a bit of an effort to get her to sleep. That night all the littler kids were a bit out of sorts- Althea, Kieran and Maddy each woke, and Maddy ended up snuggling with us.
The next day we took our time getting up, making pancakes and getting ready...Emily, Eric, Eric, Melissa and I were preparing to hike around Timothy Lake- a 13 mile hike that would take roughly 4 hours. I decided that morning that I would cut my hike short , one hour out, then back,as we didn't leave until 11:00 and I wanted plenty of lake time to swim with Maddy. Steve, Megan and Brendan stayed at camp with the kids. Turns out that was a good choice for me- it was quite hot and I was pretty tired by the end. I changed into my swimsuit, jumped in the lake to cool off and dear Steve had my lunch all ready when I came out of the lake. Yay! We spent the afternoon swimming and playing with the kids.
That evening we had chili dinner, complete with biscuits we baked on a stick over the fire. Maddy insisted that night to sleep on our bed, and I suppose I don't blame her. We had a queen size air mattress, all blown up, and she had a thin therma-rest. Poor Steve got the therma-rest that night! Looks like we'll be getting a twin size air mattress before our next camping trip. Does that count as "glamping"?
We had another fun, relaxing night by the fire. Have I mentioned lately that I love our friends...and camping?
The next morning we awoke to rain potter-pattering on the tent. Maddy, snuggled up against me said, "What's that?" I groaned. Rain wasn't in the forecast, and we weren't prepared for this turn of events. I got up, ran out and folded up all the camp chairs to keep them dry. I cleaned up camp a little, then ran back to the tent to dry off and wait it out. It turned out to be a whole line of thunderstorms! Magnificent and I was happy to witness them (thunderstorms are one thing I miss from Minnesota) but also a bit of an annoyance for packing up camp. We all pitched in, packed up and cleaned up camp in sporadic rain, then headed out to reconvene at a restaurant for lunch on our way back to Portland.
All in all, a great camping trip!
