Family Camp 2010 Day 1

For the past several years a few intrepid explorers have set out for a long weekend of fun and frolic that we fondly refer to as Family Camp. Getting to Family Camp usually begins with several days of organizing, grocery shopping, and finding everything from the previous year. This year was no different although there were a couple added bonuses along the way.

After 2 years of hit and miss on the packing end of this,  I finally came up with some sort of "plan", and I use that term very loosely, as I am probably the most un-organized, un-prepared person I know. Since camp begins on Thursday, my plan consisted of getting the clothes washed on Tuesday, getting everything out of the attic, into the living room and sorted on Wednesday, and packing it all in the car and getting out of the driveway without forgetting to many things on Thursday. That was my plan and I was sticking to it
Along comes added bonus #1.  I received all these beautiful peaches and pears on Sunday, 4 days before we were scheduled to depart, which of course, needed something to be done with them, namely canned. Fortunately for me, the pears were not ready to can yet, so I relegated them to a dark, quiet corner in my laundry closet to complete the process of ripening. Soo guess what I did all day Monday? You got it! I was canning peaches! I had them all in the jars, sitting in the big pot and wouldn't you know the water wouldn't start boiling, I'm like why isn't it boiling? So I called my handy dandy BFF and she said, "Debra, put the lid on the pot and it will start boiling", I was like "DUH", and within a couple minutes it was boiling and the timer ready to be set. I should've known this but my mind was on the large amount of clothing I needed to wash and the camping gear that still needed to be collected from the dark recesses of the attic.

Canned Peaches

Moving along now, by the time Thursday rolled around I was exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally. This is okay though, it means I actually did the things I was planning on doing. Much to my husband dismay though, I found it almost impossible to maintain a good attitude while looking at the pile of things that needed to go in the back area of my vehicle, whilst trying to remember if there was anything I might have forgotten to find. My husband reminded me that we had a boat to load things into also, which was a darn good thing because I know it wasn't all gonna fit into the back of the suburban! We proceeded to load the suburban to the roof and the boat to the gills. Everything had a place and everything was in its place, we managed to squeeze 4 kids in the back and off we went. First stop, Grandmas house. I truly don't remember why we stopped there, but I do know we managed to be able to unload about 50lbs of firewood we didnt need, and obtain an extra cooler that came in handy.

Grandmas House

While we were there, some of the other explorers stopped to see what we were doing and offered to drive down with us. That would have been nice but we still had several stops to make and did not want to hold up the parade.

intrepid explorers

We had a fairly calm drive down to the camping area and the kids were so tired they all fell asleep in the back of the vehicle until we reached Deary.

 And now we have added bonus #2, the Tube. With the absence of a compressor to blow up said tube, we needed to stop somewhere and get that done before continuing on the journey, as there would be no place for that to be done once we got there. The Tube was a last minute surprise so that even the little kids could have a great time on the lake. We already had skis and boy if you want to have a good laugh just ride on a boat with people who are learning to ski, but we did not have skis for little kids so the Tube was a great investment. This is were added bonus #3 comes in. We had a boat! Thank goodness for that boat, for there would have been numerous things that would have been left behind if not for the glorious boat and the extra space it provided for our large amount of camping paraphernalia. So we aired up the Tube, and headed on our way to, what I will refer to as "The Hill Of Doom". This is the road you have to go down to get to the Dworshak Reservoir, which is where we would be camping this year. This is a long, winding, downhill, have to have your brake on most of the time type of road. I took pictures all the way down, otherwise I probably would have been hanging onto the arm rest with my eyes closed, and praying that nothing was coming up from the bottom. The armrest probably still has fingernail marks in it from me hanging on. Here are a couple pictures of the "Hill Of Doom".

The top of the Hill Of Doom

Single Lane corner

The Final Corner

The "Hill Of Doom" is approximately 2 miles of corners all down hill, unless of course your leaving then its all uphill, but thats another story. If you notice in the pictures there are dings and dents in the guardrail ALL the way down the road. I actually breathed a sign of relief when we reached the bottom. I have more pictures, but these will at least give you an idea of my harrowing encounter going down a large hill fully loaded with boat in tow. I almost kissed the ground at the bottom, I was grateful we finally made it.

Dworshak State Campground

Having finally made it to our destination, we started unloading the suburban and boat of our assorted camping items and proceeded to load them into the cabin for Dale and I, and the various assigned tents for the kids. Yes you heard me, Cabin! Given the option of cabin camping or tent camping I will always always choose the cabin. It has a heater and electric and beds and a couch and a table and a floor, its AWESOME! One thing I tell everyone I know, I wont camp in a tent until I absolutely have to, which wont be for a while, hopefully the Lord will come back before then!
We had a wonderful camp dinner with great friends and a lot of fun sitting around chatting. I was so tired the first 3 days I was there, all I wanted to do was sit in my green fold up chair next to the fire and chill-ax (I got that word from my teenage son). Everything went according to plan, everything got done and everyone got to bed at a fairly reasonable hour. And that was pretty much the end of day one. This post turned out to be way longer than I had anticipated so will write about the other days in another post.
Hope I didn't forget anything :)