Mega Summer Trip - Part C

After hanging out in Garden Valley, my brother Jack and I decided to take a detour out to Lava Hot Springs and camp for a couple days with my kids. We took my tent trailer, which I was concerned about setting up by ourselves. (Jack and I are both only 5' 3", and although Jack is definately stronger than me, he is barely 16 and not exactly rippling with muscles.) We handled the trailer with no problems, though, and had a great time.

We stayed at a sportsman's access about 10 minutes away from the pools. Most people would consider the train to be a negative, but my boys thought it was the coolest thing ever. When one would hear the train's whistle, he'd have to call out to his brother, and they'd both go watch the train together. Every time. A little dirt never hurt, right? I think this was our dirtiest camping trip ever.

Adam was a fish at the hot springs (thanks in part to his recent swimming lessons). He handled the slide with no help, even swimming himself back to the ladder to climb out and do it again.

Alex loved the water as long as he stayed on the stairs. Not exactly fish material yet.

After about 4 hours and lots of phone calls, my sister Lisa was successful in getting a permission form forged and sent to the pool so Jack could do the platforms. That's him on the top, ready to jump.

There was only one exception to our fun:

A group of campers showed up the last night and asked if they could camp pretty close to us because the campsite was getting quite full. We said they could, and they were really nice people as they were setting up camp. Unfortunately, several beers later, one of the girls turned out to be not-so-nice. She talked loudly around the campfire until nearly 3 am. I finally got to sleep, only to be woken up again by the same loud- (and foul-) mouthed drunk girl. She was apparently not having a good time and was determined to go home. Her friend was determined to not let her drive drunk. They exchanged several loud and profane words around 5 am, and I was worried she was going to wake up the kids. I went out to try to talk some sense into her (at least enough to get her to stop yelling so loudly) but only accomplished getting yelled and sworn at myself. It only took her about 20 minutes to clean up her stuff and leave (drunk, I assume). I really hope she and her 6 year old son made it wherever they were going safely.

I finally returned home, dirty and tired, on Saturday night. With all parts of my summer mega trip, I was gone for 8 straight days, most of which involved a campfire. Amazingly, I think I could have still handled more!