Sixteenth Passage

We went camping for several days about a month ago, and I'm finally going to blog about it. What was originally going to be several posts, I will condense into one, since it was so long ago that we went camping. Maybe two...

We left on a Friday. David took half a day off work. The car was packed pretty tight, and we had bikes on the back and top of the car. But most of our stuff was taken up by my dad in his gigantic trailer. Good thing too, otherwise we wouldn't have had room for our clothes or tents, or sleeping bags.

We camped on Buck Mountain. It was about a 4 hour drive and much of it was windy roads. Lydia got car sick and threw up everywhere.

We got to camp, where most of my family was already. We set up our tents and ate dinner.

We stayed from Friday, till Wednesday, and did lots of stuff. Here are some of the highlights.

Four wheeling:  My dad brought his four ATV's up, and we had lots of fun playing on them. At first, William and Owen were terrified, but they quickly got over that once they learned how fun it was to ride them.

 Don't worry, the boys didn't ride by themselves. They just liked to pretend.

You'll notice David's lack of facial hair. He participated in a contest with my dad and brothers to see who could grow the biggest beard by the end of the camping trip. This was the first (and last?) time that I've seen David completely shaven.

We brought our bikes and the bike trailer, so we did some riding. Morgan and William rode their bikes a lot, but no pictures. In the background of this one, David was helping my nephew Kaien, fix his bike after the chain fell off.

There were lots of wild flowers near by, and the boys were frequently bringing them to me.

We also did firewood collecting and the boys loved to help. They helped by finding fallen trees and lugging the whole thing to camp.

Us older people found bigger logs, but the chainsaw my dad brought was not really up to the task of cutting them up. David managed a few though!

Lydia had a grand time, and was constantly covered in dirt.

David brought his guitar and amazing singing voice, so there was fun with that.

My brother brought his dog, Shiloh. The kids liked it.

We also went on hikes/nature walks, climbed trees, explored old cabin ruins, played in a freezing cold creek, played volleyball, lots of board and card games, smores and campfire fun. I just didn't take enough pictures, since I used my phone as a camera, but didn't have anything to charge it.


A big lowlight of the trip was the mosquito's. There were SO SO many. We had to make a trip to Cascade for more mosquito repellent since everyone was running out. But it still wasn't enough.
Look at the blood suckers on Lydia's face.

The mosquitos seemed to like to go for the hairline. All the kids who apparently didn't know how to swat the mosquitos away had a ton of bites along their hairline.

Look at the poor boys. William and his bug bites, Morgan and his sunburn and peeling skin, Owen and his bug bits.

And Lydia's face and arms on the day we went home. The crazy thing is, Lydia's bites haven't gone away yet! They've gone down, but they are still there. In fact, I think they are flaring up again.

I think soon I will tell the tale of the creepy deer which changed the way I look at them. Like, I don't like deer anymore.