Scenes from Camping

Francisco told me that he wanted to see some benefits from my promotion, so I took off the first two days of the kids' fall break--cancelled two classes--and we went camping in a WPA cabin. 

The weather was incredible. And it was nice to be in the woods. 

Francisco did a lot of the preparation and packing. One of the things I volunteered to pack was the bedding--and I promptly forgot to packs sheets, so we had to wrap ourselves up in blankets. I'm in a tradition of real campers and I embarrass myself with my bottom-shelf self. (Neighbors in a different cabin put a tablecloth on the picnic table and even put up colorful camping lights!)

We took walks, read Cheaper by the Dozen, played games. (Q cried when the dad died in Cheaper by the Dozen.) (The book taught us about the hairstyle intriguingly nicknamed, "Cootie garage.")

 

The first night I was shocked by the mice in the walls. And everyone in the family woke me up (the cabin was really one big room with bunkbeds). The second night I slept better. 

The stone bridge. 

Above: The waterfall--a special point of the park. The water is low right now, but this just really highlights how flat our region is. 

I told you I took off, but I did bring some editing, which was fun to do in a lovely place. Although somehow I only grabbed half of what I meant to grab, which was frustrating to my control-freak self. 

The trip, while happy, was not without meltdown on my part. An oversized walking stick of Blaze's kept invading my space and after a while I threw it down a hill into a creek. Bad behavior on mama's part; tears on Blaze's. 

We had lunch one day at the state park inn. Francisco loves a pork tenderloin sandwich. 

Q, who loves to think about future careers, said he'd like to take my job when I'm done. "Two Dr. Leopards!" he dreamed. 

Above: An old quarry. Blaze described this as "hazardous" due to the "crevices." Do all six-year-olds have a vocabulary like this? His word choices amaze us.