A Camping We Will Go

We went camping at Mt. Rainier for a few days.  The girls and Ken were SO excited.  I tried to be happy.  I used to really love camping, but lately, I haven't enjoyed it as much as I used to.  I came to the conclusion that it is the girl's fault ;)  But this blog post isn't about why I don't enjoy camping like I used to, but about how I enjoyed this camping trip.  I have a great fire builder who always had a fire ready when we needed one.  The girls loved sitting around the fire in their chairs (doesn't Sophia look so old in this picture?) . . . and digging in the dirt . . . and playing with rocks and sticks . . . and roasting marshmallows.  I tried not to get upset when they got super dirty . . . but I did have to put a stop to Amelia making dirt angels and the girls pouring dirt over each other.

Ken helped cook a lot of the meals - so that made the camping experience better too.  He even planned some new meals that we've never tried before - Cowhorn biscuits (canned biscuits wrapped around the end of a broom handle, cooked over the fire, then filled with scrambled eggs, etc.).  The kids weren't as excited about that one (or the hot dogs wrapped with crescent rolls) as we thought they'd be, so perhaps we'll hold off on doing those again for awhile.

We went on quite a few short hikes around Mt. Rainier - or as Amelia called it "Mountain Reindeer".  The weather was perfect - not too hot, no rain, and the wild flowers around Mt. Rainier were in perfect form.

Amelia LOVES flowers and always wants to pick them.  It was so frustrating to her that she couldn't pick any flowers - not even the ones on the side of the path.  She eventually picked one, but then Sophia wanted one too.  I'm sure we weren't the only couple with children illegally picking the flowers ;)

I know these pictures just don't do justice to the awe and beauty of Mt. Rainier, but I had to take and post them anyway.

The girls were great hikers (mostly).  And hiking is a part of camping that I really DO enjoy.  We hiked into a lake (which we were told we could dip our toes into).  Turns out there wasn't much lake access, and then when we finally found a spot, the water was ice cold (I guess that's what happens when a lake is fed by a glacier) and surrounded by mosquitoes.  Both girls enjoyed playing in and around the water anyway - but paid the price by getting covered with mosquito bites.  I don't know why we didn't think of putting insect repellant on - we had some with us, just not on our hike.  I was the only one that didn't get bit by mosquitoes - I must not be sweet enough.

This picture was taken by Sophia on our way back from the lake.  Pretty good for an almost 3-yr old, I think.

I'm a sucker for waterfalls.  This was Christina Falls (I think).  We didn't even have to hike to this one - just drive and park.

Proof that I was happy on our camping trip.  This picture was taken before I discovered that the mouse? that had somehow gotten into our trunk, had eaten through the backseat of the car to get to the bag of snacks that were in the front seat.  

When we camp, we're pretty cautious about leaving food out - day or night.  We always put our cooler and other food containers in the car over night.  But on Monday before our hike, we discovered a small hole in our trail mix.  It looked like the bag had got caught on the zipper or something, so we didn't think much of it.  However, on Tuesday morning as we were getting ready to hike, I discovered our bag of nuts was completely empty and trail mix was all over the inside of our Camelback.  I quickly discovered other similar holes in bags, plus mouse poop inside a food bag.  YUCK!  There went a lot of our snacks - thank goodness we were heading home that day.  We still couldn't figure out how the mouse had gotten to our snacks . . . until we got home and I took out the carseats to vacuum and clean them.  Behind one of the carseats was a pile of stuffing from the back seat and a small hole that went from the backseat to somewhere in the trunk or under the car.  So much for keeping our food safe by putting it on our car.  I guess sealed plastic bags aren't mouse deterrents.

But enough of the icky . . . how about this stunning shot of Mt. Rainier and Myrtle Falls?  We were stunned to see that there were only a handful of people and we somehow managed to get pictures without any of those people in the picture.  Yeah for going on a weekday morning!  The first year we tried to do this hike/walk, it was covered in snow - in August.  The next year it was severely overcast and you couldn't even see the mountain while standing right in front of it.  So this year we felt like we hit the jackpot - perfect weather and minimal people.

And so the mostly happy campers ended our camping trip - as we headed back down hill and toward home.