Warm River

I know it is kind of a Murdock woman tradition to dislike camping, and I have upheld that tradition faithfully for many years. I have avoided it and avoided it, and avoided it, much to the dismay of Jared, who grew up camping with his family for at least a week every summer, and several additional weekends. It has been hard to resist, especially after winning over $700.00 worth of camping equipment from a drawing when we purchased our van. That is just my luck! The ONLY drawing I have ever won in my entire life, and I have no doubt the car salesman was thoroughly annoyed at the look of complete alarm on my face when he told me I won. Anyway, when Jared announced that "we were going to go camping whether I liked it or not, and we really had no excuse", I was very apprehensive, but a good sport nonetheless. We got out all of our state-of-the-art gear, and we got ready. It turns out, that minus the nursing in a tent in the middle of a night, and messing around with bottles and formula, and diapers, and kids that cry all night long, camping is really not that bad! We went to Warm River. It is a campground about 1 hour from here, and it has this really nice river (hence the name) that runs right through it. When we are arrived Jared wasn't impressed because we weren't secluded enough, but I was quite happy to see that we had tiolets, and a water hydrant, and little bit of shade. The first afternoon, we were SO hot. It hasn't been very hot this summer, but that was a hot day. It isn't much fun to put up a tent in 90 degree heat ( I know that isn't that hot, but it is to me!). Despite the discomfort of setting up camp, we went down to the banks of the river, and the kids played in the water. It is a really shallow river, so the kids enjoyed themselves. We had brought along some tubes to float down the river, but hadn't had a chance to inflate them so we just played in the water. When we got too cold, we had a pretty good "Hobo dinner" that we had prepared before we left, and the kids actually ate out of pure starvation from playing in the water and heat. That tends to wear the them out, which was my hole objective. After dinner, we inflated our tubes and headed out on our maiden voyage. It was...humorous. I thought that one of the big tubes would hold me and Lawren, so with Lawren in one arm, and my tube in the other I waded out into the water and tried to get on.....TOTALLY fell in the water, and bytheway ,I think they may have gotten the name wrong. IT is DEFINITELY NOT warm. Of Course that freaked Lawren out, so I sent her back up to the campsite, to dry off. In the meantime the other kids had managed to get on their tubes, but were crying and screaming because I wasn't with them. I ended up hauling my water-logged self up the trail calling after Nathan that it was okay because he was scared. Lyndi managed to stop both Seth and Nathan and I waded out and rescued him. Poor kid. For some reason, of which I am not aware, he thought that the rocks on the bottom of the river were bears? I have no clue where he got that from. Anyway, our maiden voyage was a total disaster. Oh well, MOST of the kids (Lawren not included) were good sports and were willing to try again the next day. After we all got dried off, we roasted some marshmallows, and some starbursts (pretty "wierd", Jared says, but good). Jared and I sat up and talked for awhile, and then went to bed. I actually slept, and (miracles never cease) so did ALL the kids. I didn't even have to take anyone to the bathroom! The next morning it was raining, and that was really the only really bummer part of the trip. I pressed on, despite the rain (in honor of the fact that it was Pioneer Day that day) and made scrambled eggs and bacon, using (for the first time), my campstove and camp cookwear. It was good, except for the fact that I forgot to pack salt, and scrambled eggs without salt aren't my favorite. After that we went for a lovely walk along the path that follows the river. We even saw a bull moose and two eagles catch fish out of the river....very cool. It was also very lush and green up there. I think it was my favorite part of the trip. After our walk it really started to rain, and so we took a family nap. You know the kind where no one but the parents sleep....I made sandwhiches for lunch, then we set out to Mesa Falls, where we met Steve and Verda, and got to see a very beautiful waterfall. When we got back to our campsite we decided to do some more river floating since it had cleared up and stopped raining. Jared and I decided to take the kids (except for Lawren). This one went much more smoothly, except that once again I fell off my tube, and lost one of my sandals. I went three more times with Verda, Seth, and Nathan, and got it down to a science by the end of the day. Lyndi went a couple more times too. It was really fun for them. Steve and Verda cooked a delicious dinner with potatoes and fish and corn and beans. The kids, who didn't care for the fish, ate hotdogs. After dinner, Jared and Steve went fishing, and Verda and I stayed with the kids and gorged ourselves on marshmallows and starbursts. Again, we stayed up past dark and talked, and went to bed. It was a pretty fun day. The next day we cleaned up, took the tent down, went on one more river trip, and then came home. The best part about the whole trip was watching the kids have so much fun. I even enjoyed myself, escpecially after I got to take a shower when we got home. It feels so good to be clean after being so stinky and dirty. I guess it is that "opposition in all things" principle, huh?
Sorry about the no pictures thing....there were good intentions there, but it didn't work out.