Camping: Day Two

After sleeping (or not) to the hum of highway noise (insert sarcasm here!), we woke up on our first morning to Meaty's birthday. We had carefully planned to celebrate his big day a few days earlier so that he would have a "real" birthday and presents. We packed one present, a "5" candle, and some pre-packaged donuts to celebrate. He was thrilled.

We set out to explore a little bit, but the kids totally surprised us by being willing to hike - a few miles no less! Without whining! We had a really fun day throwing rocks in the lake, heading down to a nearby river, and hiking through the woods.

The Birthday Boy officially turns five!

Heading out for a hike on a foggy morning.

If this bridge looks high, it's because it WAS.

Troopers!

Throwing rocks. Meaty could do this all. day. long.

Taking a break on the hike.

We had been walking a while and I suggested we should probably turn around or J and I would have been carrying the kids. When I explained to Banany why we should turn around, she said, "Oh, so we can kind of save our foot bones to walk the whole way?"

Yup. Save those foot bones!

We walked down about 150 stairs to get to the river bed only to find that our only choices were to walk back up the stairs or cross the river. We opted to cross the river. The current wasn't terribly strong and it wasn't terribly deep in most places. However there were crayfish EVERYWHERE and the rocks were extremely slippery. J carried the kids.

One kid would wait on a rock and he'd come back for the other one. My chivalrous hubs offered to carry me too, but there was no way I could be carried after watching him carry the kids. I tried to start crossing but the rocks were so slippery and the crayfish were not scattering like I'd hoped they would! J got across then tossed his sandals to me (I had tennis shoes on) so that I could cross.

We all agreed that our river adventure was one of the highlights of the trip!