Camping at Timothy Lake

You don't want to hear about our first day of camping, really, you don't. Everyone was grouchy (especially me), and it wasn't pretty. However, God is gracious and answers prayer, and the rest of our weekend was very enjoyable (except for that rainstorm as we were packing up...I could have done without that)!

Do you like our new tent? We do! We paid $50 for it, so that makes us like it even more, especially since it's a $300 tent. It was a display model or something, and so we got a great deal from my new favorite thrift store Project Hope. (They buy liquidated merchandise from Target and Fred Meyer, and they have some really nice--new--stuff at great prices.) At any rate, we can actually stand up and get dressed now. There is also room for our clothes and a few more people too. Whooo-hoo!

I couldn't resist surreptitiously taking a picture of our neighbor's pitiful tent. I don't know if they forgot the other two shock-corded poles or what, but they only had one in the tent and they strung up the rest of the tent with rope. I don't know how the two of them even got inside this to sleep as it was only about three-feet wide! It cracked me up every time I looked their way.

Take a good look at the cute kids in this picture. This is the cleanest you will see them for the remainder of the trip, excepting the times we were actually in the lake! Due to the fact that it hasn't rained in a while, it was incredibly dusty at our campsite.

We spent most of our day Saturday doing some geocaching. We took some fun trails and hikes and saw some gorgeous sites, which I will publish in another post soon. We had a neat little tour of this Historic Ranger Station that was built by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) during the depression. The CCC did a ton of work in Oregon, and it was interesting to hear more about their forestry work.

Kids, take a good look at this machine. This artifact is what's known as a typewriter. It's what old folks (yeah, people like me) used to use before there were word processing programs and computers and text messaging, etc. Who knew my kids would be enthralled with it? They begrudgingly took turns typing out their names and other things and had an absolute blast...go figure!

It is amazing to me that just about anywhere you go, you can find a geocache or two or 100 to hunt for. We printed out about 25, several of which are part of a contest that we're participating in.



"Hurry up and take the picture, we're getting eaten alive by mosquitoes!"

After a hot day of tramping through the woods, we stopped at Frog Lake and took a dip. I know it looks like Ryan and Abigail are out in the middle of the lake, but if you look closely, you'll see that Abby isn't even shoulder deep in the water! It was a very shallow incline and they had lots of room to play and swim without worrying about getting over their heads. Hubby and I went out too and cooled off for a little while, and it felt so good to get the dust off!

Abby was fantastic at rounding up piles of kindling for Daddy to build the fire with, and Ryan helped carry loads of bigger wood. He's getting so strong! Too bad it was so hot that we didn't really get to enjoy the fire too much.