Memories of camping - August 24-27, 2008
Thanks to everyone who sent good wishes on our way to camping. It was lovely of you to take the time to do so, and it worked! We had great fun. Here are some of the highlights, in no particular order, and with input from the kinder:
Lots of fun things to remember about this trip, but I think my main take-away was the reminder, once again, of how much I LIKE my kids. I mean, most parents love their kids - hopefully, and I do love mine. More than words could ever hope to express. But I think I am lucky in that I also LIKE them. A lot. They are great to be with. They, like all of us, have their moments of disgruntled crabbiness, but all-in-all I honestly cannot think of any other people I'd rather spend time with. I'm so grateful we were able to take this little time out from regular life to just bask in non-scheduled lazy hang-aboutness, punctuated with so many good memories. Lucky, we are. Very.
- We love kayaking! First time for three of us, and we all adore it. Want to buy kayaks, use often.
- Stars - gazillions of them
- Thunderstorm DIRECTLY overhead first night. Amazing. Loud and awesome AND we stayed dry.
- Boat guy who comes around every morning dropping boats off at campsites; and
- boat kid who comes around the morning you leave to pick them up
- Ice cream truck. Every night. Usually right before dinner. Perfect!
- Moose Tracks
- direct lake access with our very own itty bitty beach
- WARM LAKE WATER. omg, made it all even better
- did I mention the kayaking? Oh yes, I did. Well, again. LOVE IT!
- spontaneous two hour kayaking adventure without any prep (and by prep, I mean sunscreen), resulting in lots of "what's around the next bend?" moments, feelings of accomplishment, and massive sunburn. Woo!
- eldest in charge of meals. good eats, much relaxation.
- campfires of fail, for the most part, though we got a couple of good ones going, eventually
- many lazy hours of not much to do, resulting in fun and interesting conversations with my kids, who are:
- really great to hang out with. they get along with each other, they're up for adventure, and cool with just lazing about and/or entertaining themselves
- Contract rummy games
- Apples to Apples
- everyone pitching gracefully pitching in to help set up and take down the campsite
- walking in the woods
- helpful scavanger tweety birds cleaning up the campsite. Like 50 of them.
- Being in a double kayak with my son about 10 feet away from a loon, when it started calling. It basically had a conversation with my kid.
- Loons sound freaky and cool.
- Hearing coyotes and loons and owls calling at night.
- trip to the Trading Post for ice and wood and (more) books and candy
- trip to the marina for another kayak that eldest paddled back to our campsite
- POTATOES BAKED IN THE CAMP FIRE FOR DINNER! OMG, SO MUCH YUM!
- checking out the other campsites. people have cute little signs with their names and hometowns. awwww...
- Yoo-hoos across the lake. From sundown til taps at 10, folks randomly engage in bouts of yelling "Yoohoo" loudly across the lake at each other. This may sound lame, but it is quite good fun. Once you lose your inhibition about yelling like that in public, it's absolutely exhilarating. Fostered a sense of camraderie as well, with all those nameless, faceless other campers.
- Taps at 10, signalling the beginning of quiet hours
- solemnly listening to taps with my kids. sweet.
- talking by the campfire, 'bout nothing in particular
- jamming along to the neighbors tunage, dancing as ridiuculously as possible. Warms ya up. Is fun.
- shooting stars
- middle of the night trip to the loo with youngest, which is when I saw the shooting star
- listening to my kids squeal and guffaw in great merriment as they splashed and boated and played in the water
- the air mattresses of fail. leading to:
- four of us sleeping on one queen size air mattress. Squishy, but awwww...CUTE! In spite of my right foot being frozen, wouldn't trade it.
- Stop in Lake Placid on the way home to eat in a restaurant - nummy!
- and go to a store of pipes and old books. the smell was DELICIOUS! we bought books. Obvs.
- Stop at Whiteface mountain on the way home to take the gondola to the top and marvel at the view and climb on rocks!
- Stop in Keene on the way home for soft serve ice cream
- sunburn memento of kayaking to keep the memory alive.
- unanimous agreement that this needs to become a yearly tradition
Lots of fun things to remember about this trip, but I think my main take-away was the reminder, once again, of how much I LIKE my kids. I mean, most parents love their kids - hopefully, and I do love mine. More than words could ever hope to express. But I think I am lucky in that I also LIKE them. A lot. They are great to be with. They, like all of us, have their moments of disgruntled crabbiness, but all-in-all I honestly cannot think of any other people I'd rather spend time with. I'm so grateful we were able to take this little time out from regular life to just bask in non-scheduled lazy hang-aboutness, punctuated with so many good memories. Lucky, we are. Very.