Gypsy Village

Part of Americana to not only elect but also look forward towards living in refugee compounds. We of course call them campgrounds and encourage food to be eaten with dirty hands and give up on the notion of a clean cheek to kiss on. By the second day the idea of bare feet and pit toilets doesn't even slow a person down. We headed out to Council Grounds last weekend for the inaugural camping trip of the season. We meet the Clan Bryan in the granite woods and they brought the gorgeous weather. We had three beautiful days with dappled sunlight filtering through tall maples. We did have to make a trip back into town for some forgotten supplies, namely chairs and bug spray (rookie mistake) but otherwise we just wandered around the woods for the weekend. The Pine River runs through the grounds and with the seemingly 3 straight weeks of rain, it was a torrent. The oldest boys tried their hands at fishing, but the added volume made the fish even harder to find. The rest of us spent a lot of time hanging out at the beach. There were plenty of sandcastles, rock collections and general holes that needed digging to occupy much of an afternoon. The youngest Bryan, a reptile sort of child, would run into the cold water only to run back out and lay in the hot sand and cover himself up to regain body temperature. We did find some time to continue to celebrate Sophia's birthday week (no almost a 9 day season) with birthday watermelon, complete with 8 candles. Great hiking trails and we spent the mornings with coffee and barefooted hikes through the woods. Even started a new game of 'Statue' as some of the trails used existing campground roads. The kids would strike statue poses along the shoulder whenever a car came by. This kept them safe and us adults entertained. All the kids were so well behaved that I even opted for an extra day and took the campsite until Monday. They stayed busy building entire "cities" in the woods and riding their bikes. Merrick was very pleased to be able to just ride around the loop all by himself. He also made great progress in his balance, to the point that I pulled his training wells off and we worked on riding without them for one of mornings. Sophia's new frisbee golf set up The evenings were filled with smores and even some mando and guitar work from the uncle. In the end we didn't stay the extra day, it was a major downer when the cousins packed up, and over lunch time tears we decided to pack up as well. It was the right decision, too much of a good thing had left the kids pretty fried. Maybe that is the allure of a gypsy village, you can leave whenever you want.