Where the White Things Are

On July 14th, we packed up, loaded up, and drove up 4-ish hours to the Iron Creek Campground in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. It was hands down our favorite campsite to date. We were a one minute walk from the Cispus River, which we could hear rushing over rocks from our tent. We were about a four minute walk from a perfect tiny riverside beach with dark rough sand and plenty of small rocks to throw in the water and also some bigger rocks for climbing. The campground was circled by a 1.5 mile trail, with some awesome giant moss-covered logs scattered throughout. The kids climbed green fuzzy logs and explored and threw rocks in the river and built sand castles and even waded in the frigid water to their hearts' content. It was a dream.

Friday morning after 1. a really bad night sleep for me (good for everyone else) and 2. a really good 9 mile run for me, we went on a family walk along the trail by the river to explore and get some kid-energy out before our next drive. Then we drove 26 miles on the curvy mountain road to the Windy Ridge Viewpoint to take a look at Mt. St. Helens. We happened to arrive just in time to listen to a ranger give a fascinating 25 minute talk about the mountain, the eruption, and the ecology of the area. Then we hiked up a couple hundred stair steps (give or take) to the top of Windy Ridge and beautiful views. They named it Windy Ridge for a reason--it was blowing so hard! And burrrrr! 51 degrees and windy equals cold!

We drove back to our campsite that afternoon and I took the kids to play in the river while Jeff went on a nice long run. It was one of those perfectly content moments for me, sitting there next to the scenic rushing river and watching my kids explore and play. Pure tranquility, intermittently interrupted by a dash-lunge-grab every time Amber got too brave by the swift cold river. Eventually we packed up and strolled back to the campsite.

Friday night we could NOT get a fire started--the wood we bought was damp through--so we roasted our sausages and hot dogs and s'mores on the trusty camp stove. I am so bad at thinking up food to make while camping! So we had the same thing both nights, minus that smoky mac on night #2. In the tent that night, Jeff and I switched spots so he was on the front lines between me and Amber, and I slept much better. Amber fell asleep with her fingers in Jeff's hair--haha. I woke up before the kids on Saturday morning, and enjoyed watching them slowly wake up, one by one. I see them sleeping every night, but it's not often that I get to watch them wake up. First some stirring, then a sigh or a cough, then a roll over, and last a tousled blonde head raised up, looked around the tent, saw me watching, and gave me a puffy-eyed half-asleep grin. It was THE BEST.

Jeff and I took turns running on Saturday morning on the nearby forest service road. "Sister, it was paradise found" *--thick tree trunks, lush green ferns and undergrowth, the occasional stream of sunshine lighting up a grove of trees or a slice of river. It was quiet, remote, and absolutely perfect for glorious zen-running. I just wanted to keep on running! So I did and wore myself out, running 15 miles in two days. Worth it!!
{*quoted from Bubba and Beau Meet the Relatives by Kathi Appelt--a true southern gem of a kids' book}

After our second post run baby wipe bath in two days, Jeff and I loaded everything and everyone back into the van and started the drive, with Jim Dale in the CD player working his own Muggle magic reading Harry Potter. Those are the highlights of the trip. It's amazing how easy it is to leave out the less-pleasant details! There were plenty of "low-lights" too, like:

We forgot matches. Seriously. We went camping without matches. We felt so LAME--we've been camping tons of times! Jeff had to ask the campsite director for matches when he was buying firewood. She kindly gave him a small handful of strike-anywhere matches, but we couldn't get them to strike anywhere! So brave Jeff asked the people at the site across the road if we could borrow a match box to strike our matches. They ended up giving us an entire box of matches, bless them, and we will officially NEVER leave for the woods without double stock of matches again!

Rose got carsick and barfed on our way to the campsite. We pulled over in the nick of time and she scrambled out of the van before the puking started, but she did get some in her hair (gag) and it was sad that she got that carsick. Nobody in our family has ever actually barfed from carsickness, not even me!
Amber took 2 hours to fall asleep both nights and climbed all OVER all of our heads, picking our noses and pulling our hair while she was settling down each night. It was rather chaotic in the tent for a while after bedtime each night. Thankfully Jeff and I were prepared for much worse and we weathered the wiggly kids well.
I burned our macaroni dinner on the camp stove. It was my first time cooking on a propane stove (normally we do fire cooking 100%, but we also normally starve while camping, so this time we got a camp stove to supplement and it was great). The entire pot of macaroni was not burned, but while I was stirring it up (with a stick because I forgot to bring a big spoon) I scraped up the burned layer from the bottom of the pot and mixed it in with the rest of the noodles. The entire batch of mac had a very smoky flavor. Rose and Amber did not like it, but the rest of us ate it to supplement our dinner of hot dogs/sausages and s'mores.

The golden moments far outnumbered and outweighed the rough patches, thankfully, and we had a great time! Jay adored our campsite and requested to go back there next year too.

THURSDAY

All 3 kids got a little wetter than they wanted to. Well, Amber didn't get as wet as she wanted to, but that was not her choice. That water was COLD.

Family tent selfies--a time honored family tradition

FRIDAY MORNING

WINDY RIDGE

FRIDAY AFTERNOON, back at the campsite

THE CISPUS RIVER, Friday afternoon

These kids insisted on getting their bathing suits on to play by the river, even though it was chilly enough outside for me to wear a jacket. They scampered all over the rocks and sand in their little suits, happily oblivious to the cool temperatures. Also, I did not try very hard to pick favorite pictures from this trip--