Clay Creek

Camping With Kids. It's definitely not the same things as Camping Without Kids. I liken the whole thing to soy milk- you just can't think of it as a substitute for regular milk or you'll be disappointed/shocked/horrified by the first taste. It's its own thing.

So, you guessed it, we took the kids camping and it was really fun! (Not Camping Without Kids fun, but still fun.) Except that Brent packed only enough beers for us to have TWO APIECE EACH NIGHT ONLY. That was not enough.

(I realized awhile back that I talk a lot about drinking beer on this blog and that some of you- my boss perhaps- might get the impression that I am a big old drunk. Not true! I am a one or two beers a night kind of gal, but when you are camping things are different. I like to get CRAZY and have THREE beers.)

But despite the beer shortage and a minor incident with a suicidal moth, we all had a great time. People of the internet, I present to you...

It's a sweet little campground with nice spots (try to get #21 if you go), a grassy baseball field, lots of places for little ones to ride bikes, and a swimming area. The first night we got there the place was pretty much deserted so we practically had the whole campground to ourselves. That was nice because there are few things worse than trying to get your kids to sleep in a noisy campground or keeping your noisy kids from waking up an entire campground.

I hold the belief that junk food is acceptable when you are camping, so we went all out (well, all out for us) with boxed macaroni and cheese, cookies, s'mores, hot chocolate, and lemonade. The kids were all cracked out on sugar (and food dyes and preservatives, too, I'm sure) so we took them on a hike to burn off some of the junk food-fueled energy and look for some crawdads.




We saw a snake (gasp!), a crawdad, about a thousand banana slugs, some really big fallen trees (we estimated that one to be at least 200 years old- crazy), and some truly beautiful scenery. Jack hiked the entire two mile trail with minimal whining while Sawyer fell asleep in the pack.

The combination of sticky foods and close proximity to dirt meant that the kids were filthy at all times. The swimming hole wasn't the cleanest water I've ever seen, but it helped with the grime.





After three days at Clay Creek we came home and I did a mountain of laundry, scrubbed down the kiddos, put calamine lotion on mosquito bites and tucked everyone into bed.

And then I polished off the junk food.

And had an extra beer.

Home, sweet home.

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