Camping Trip 8-25-11 (Smith & Morehouse)

 

Our first and only camping trip as a family for this year, to Smith and Morehouse!  We arrived on Thursday night and got our camp set up just before dark.  We were a bit uneasy about the idea being in bear country, but we were assured by the grounds keeper that they hadn't seen any bears that season but that there were raccoons around.  We made sure that we kept all our food in the car and kept our campsite clean and we didn't have any problems with those "little" guys.

 The weather was perfect, not too cold, which made it unnecessary for a campfire for warmth, but it just wouldn't be camping without one.  The kids like to sit in their little chairs and throw sticks in the fire.  It was so peaceful up there, up until bed time that is.  By the time we got everyone ready and in bed it was about 10pm.  We thought the kids would be tired and drift off pretty quick, but we were SO wrong!  Each child had their very own flashlights to use and yes, it's fun and cool to play with flashlights when camping, but that just made the two of them hyper...especially Karissa.  After, no joke, hours of trying to get Karissa to settle down and go to sleep Ben and I were exhausted.  I don't even know what time it was before Karissa finally went to sleep but it sure seemed like the sun came up shortly there after.  Needless to say our two night camping trip was cut to one night and it will be a while before we attempt another overnighter with Karissa.

 As we were eating breakfast the next morning Ben and I decided that we would do some hiking, come back to the campsite for lunch then pack up and head home.  We were SO tired but we all wanted to do some exploring so we hiked up to the reservoir.  Ben and the kids tried a bit of fishing but when that didn't work so well we all opted to throw rocks in the water.  Ben of course chose to throw boulders in the water to achieve maximum splash. After that we hiked back down to a creek just a short walk from our campsite and explored there for a while.  Once the kids were done with that we were headed back to have lunch and pack up.  It was a great adventure for us, no doubt about it! 

Our campsite.

I love these two pictures!  Tyson was such a great big brother helping Karissa walk up the hill.

Getting ready to fish.

We found some raccoon tracks!

It was so pretty and peaceful!

Karissa really liked drinking from the Camelbacks!