Hot on the heels of K's 8th birthday was our annual family camping trip over Labor Day weekend. I didn't realize how long we'd been making this trek into the mountains for the weekend until my cousin reminded me that we left the campground one year and came straight to the hospital to see her and her newborn baby - the girl who just turned 7 years old! - and that wasn't even anywhere near our first year camping together. I had no idea we'd been doing this for that long.
The camp-out also used to include my sister and her family, who have been sorely missed out here since they moved to Phoenix about 100 years ago :( Seriously, though, we miss them a lot and can't wait until we see them again. Hopefully we'll get the chance to camp-out and play in the dirt together sometime soon.
Usually our Labor Day weekends are filled with day hikes, trips to the beach, swimming in the creek, and late nights playing games, but this year we were all completely exhausted from the crazy weeks we'd had leading up to the trip, and all agreed we would be just fine sitting around in our chairs for most of the day and night. And honestly, that's practically all we did.
Our tent site was pretty huge and had plenty of room to spread out. Unfortunately, it also had plenty of poison oak. In fact, the entire outside perimeter of our site was poison oak plants, so we had to set our tent up more towards the center, and be sure avoid touching nearly anything in our area. It's pretty amazing, actually, that we all made it out of there poison oak-free.
Grammy shares some of her cantaloupe with the kids (and the grown-ups)
C takes a liking to one of Papa's extremely sharp sticks
K finds that a ridiculously long pointy stick doubles quite well as a toothpick when eating cantaloupe. The only difficulty is figuring out how to get the cantaloupe to reach your mouth after you've stabbed it
So, we ate and snacked, and sat and talked, and walked around the campsites a bit. Michael and my mom took the only thing that might qualify as a real hike while I was reading to the girls one night, and the rest of the time we seemed pretty content to limit hiking to bathroom and shower trips.
At one point, we did do a scavenger hunt, with a list of items my mom had written up ahead of time. K was paired with Michael, C went with my dad, and A went with me. We hunted for a really long time looking for rocks in the shape of goldfish, a round and smooth stone, and the truly-elusive yellow or red flower, that no one found. Some of the items proved to be easier, like the piece of bark, inorganic item, and a piece of string. A and I prided ourselves on the fact that we brought a "dead bug" to the table that was already dead, while the two other barbarian teams sacrificed insects for their collection. We actually did win the contest, too, partially because of our creative "container you can carry water in". The other two teams brought back water bottles, but we brought back the cap to an acorn. Granted, you can't carry much water in it, but you can carry water!
And while the girls were mostly ok with playing around the campsite and reading books around the campfire, there were a couple of times where they were looking around for something new and interesting to do. K actually made friends with the people from the campsite across the street, both the kids and adults, and spent much of her daytime hours over there. We'd also brought the girls' bikes, so we gave them the campsite map and set them free to explore on their own during the day. One afternoon, my dad even used some rope from his truck and one of the pieces of firewood to make a rope swing...
They all took turns using the swing. It actually got quite a lot of use!
And of course, Papa had to try out the rope swing, too
One evening we amused ourselves by watching yellow jackets cut hunks off of the steak we were having for dinner and then attempt to fly away with it. Some of them were able to cut through pretty quickly, while others seemed to work at it forever. Several of them cut off pieces so big that they struggled to get altitude and dipped and swayed drunkenly as they tried to fly away. We wondered how many of them actually made it back to the nest with their load, or if they had to drop it along the way. There was definitely some sort of hierarchy, as well, with the yellower of the yellow jackets bumping the darker ones out of the way. The yellower ones were also much better at cutting the pieces of meat off quickly.
And while it was really fascinating to watch them work, we regretted it greatly the next day when they and one hundred of their closest friends came back to check out the new buffet restaurant in town. Next time maybe we'll watch them somewhere other than on our eating table. Oops.
Of course there were lots of lizards to be found and captured at the campsite. I think a frog may have been in the mix there, too. And what camp-out in the mountains would be complete without a couple of banana slugs on the breakfast table? Thankfully the lizards all survived the weekend and we left them behind on Monday.
Evenings were filled with huge campfires and lots and lots of smore's. We had all brought quite a bit of wood up there and none of us were interested in bringing any of it back home. So, for much of the time we had a fire that was so big and so hot we couldn't stand to be too terribly close to it. We joked that the whole ring would be full to the top of ash by the time we were done, and ironically, that's just how it was when we arrived. The ring was completely full and my dad ended up using the Weber lid and some garbage bags to clear it all out so we could even have a fire in there in the first place.
The ashes and coals made for some cool smoke-writing with the long, pointy sticks I talked about earlier, and then my dad had the great idea to use the end of his fire-poker stick as a pencil on the outside of the fire ring.
He wrote "Kelly", A wrote her name, and then he wrote the "&" and "are dorks" underneath. Fair enough.
But then he wrote "Katie is a girl", and for some reason C protested loudly and tried to erase my name with her shoe. So he changed it to "C is a girl" and then added the word "booger" at the end, for emphasis. And finally, just so she wouldn't feel left out, he gave K her own Native American name "Rocks in head"
On Monday, we decided to head out to Roaring Camp to see what was happening there. We usually don't really have any burning desire on Labor Day to do anything in particular, but none of us really want the relaxing weekend to end, so we kind of just drag it on as long as physically possible.
We headed to Scotts Valley for some Round Table Pizza, and then into the public Henry Cowell side of the park to check it out. We're all still feeling pretty lazy and decide to skip any kind of long hike through the forest or around the creek. We opt, instead, for a visit to the park's Information Center, where C takes dozens of pictures of the display animals and we all wait outside and relax. The redwood forest is one of my favorite places to be, and definitely one of my favorite places to camp. We take half of the strolling Redwood Grove Trail before I realize that I left my camera sitting in the gift shop and double-back to find it. By the time I get back with it, the group's given up the trail as well.
We decide to head over to the Roaring Camp side, where the big steam engine takes riders further into the woods, or to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. It's the 50th anniversary of the train this year, which I think is a much bigger deal than the tiny signs they've got posted at the train station show it to be. We listen to the tail-end of the music entertainment from the bbq lunch they've had, while the lone singer dedicates songs to the clean-up crew and staff. Only a few people wander around here at this time of day, but we still manage to lose the girls anyway. After a while, we find them in the gift shop petting the shop-owner's two black cats, one of which seriously looks like he was bred with a wild jungle cat of some sort. He's huge with ridiculously long legs and has a leopard face, but acts just like a domestic cat. I've never seen anything quite like it before.
We hear the familiar whistle of the approaching train, bringing travelers back to their starting point. We run to put pennies on the track for the train to squish.
One bounces off and disappears. We search for it for several minutes, but never find it. This one, however, was squished quite nicely and makes for a cool souvenir.
such a beautiful train
Still not ready to let the weekend end, we decide to let the girls have a little fun at the now deserted activities they've offered for the holiday. All three pan for gold, though only A truly sticks with it. She's convinced she'll be rich if she just keeps trying. We're actually surprised that we find quite a bit of flakes in the sludge, even though we've only paid $1 to pan on our own and not the $3 they charge for a 'stocked' pan with guaranteed gold in it.
They let us just keep panning and panning indefinitely since no one's around, so we find a few more flakes while K goes over and makes a candle. And now that the place is actually shutting down for the day, we have no other option than to give up the weekend and head for home.
But we even managed to make a mockery of that, as we actually drive the wrong way over the hill to Santa Cruz to eat dinner at Denny's, before heading back over the mountains to go home.
Actual Dates: August 30 - September 2
