Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Fall camping
We spent a gorgeous weekend in the woods. We headed over to the deer camp woods late Friday afternoon and pulled at almost exactly the same time as the klan Bryan. The kids were way excited, Molly was Jazzed and the adults could barely contain themselves. We set up camp and the kids headed to the ridge to start building forts, cities and become wood tycoons. We jumped out of the vehicles and I asked Becky how long it was since she had been in 'this' woods. She said she was about Evan's age, I laughed at her joke and then shed a tear when I realized she was not kidding. Friday evening was pretty low key with general exploration around the campsite and a small fire. The kids played tag and tossed glow sticks around, before some smores around the campfire. The kids (and Becky) petered out early and Brad and I stayed up to watch the fire and protect camp from the demons in the forest. Saturday morning was cool and we hunkered around the campfire with coffee while the kids tested their aim with BB guns and Brad's old .22. We headed out for a hunting hike with everyone packing except Molly about 4 minutes before Grandpa and Grandma showed up in their new camper. Turns out Grandpa calls it a camper by Grandma thought it was more like a trunk--any rate we just missed them. So they hung around camp reading and tending the fire while we were off setting up blinds and generally hollering in the woods. Even amongst the noise Merrick was able to tote his BB gun and put a serious stalk on an oblivious chipmunk. The chipmunk eventually skampered away only to appear about 20 feet away, but it was still way cool to watch Merrick pussy foot through the crunchy fall leaves. Our hike pushed almost 3 hours of woods time for the littlest among us that is quite a feat and the were troopers. There was more fort building and running in the woods and plenty of BB gun plinking. Bob, myself and the kids headed across H to hunt and hike a little more and Grandpa let the kids shoot their BB guns at his hat that he hung on a branch--he also asked me to shoot it with the 20 gauge I was carrying--he spent the rest of the weekend in a well ventilated lid. Sophia got her first kill on the hike. After passing up a frog on the trail I allowed her to take a shot at the second one we saw, it was about a 15 foot shot and I wasn't expecting her to smoke it so precisely. She was way excited but we also talked about not shooting things just for sport and let several other ones go. When we returned Brad was awake and ready to shoot clay pigeons. The adults took their turns with the various gauges we had brought along and then the kids got into the action as well. Evan was able to run 6 in a row, with the new 20 gauge that Grandpa brought and Sophia too shot the 'big gun' a couple of time. I suspect that she is the most experienced shooter in terms of types of guns shot in her grade. The rain came after we went to bed and Sophia woke up about 1 in the morning and had to puke. There is a sad parental feeling holding your little girl in dark and rain while she pukes her guts out. Once I got her cleaned up in the camper she said she felt much better and thought maybe it was all the snacks, rootbeer and cartwheels--she is an intuitive girl. The rain continued into Sunday morning and we packed up in a light rain and headed home with everyone already thinking about the next time we can get back out there, and in the words of the kids, "Do some real camping."
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