My family loves to camp.
But it takes great effort.
You know… pulling out the camping gear and whathaveyou.
The act of camping, or leading up to the act takes some planning. And time.
Hitherhencetofore, we don’t camp as often as we’d like.
But we really do like it. That’s why I was all, “GUYS. WE ARE GOING TO GO CAMPING THIS SUMMER WE JUST ARE.”
Unbeknownst to our children, the husband and I were quite stressed as the target date approached. We had not the time for the special shopping, nor patching inflatable mattress holes, nor finding the tent, nor cleaning and sorting from our last camping adventure.
And then a friend posted about this campsite on Facebook. Near Forks.
A campsite that provided the tent, and cots, and cooking gear, and ice chests, and ice, and firewood, and we were all, “THAT. THAT CAMPING!”
So we filled our van with clothing and groceries and stopped at Fat Smittys to fill up on the biggest burger this side of the Mississppi…
A Fat Smitty is two patties and 3 buns and cheese and special sauce and some of the most delicious bacon. Livi and I shared, Lucy got a burger without cheese, and the boys took on a full Smitty for themselves.
Then we decorated a dollar and pinned it to the ceiling. Fire hazard, much?
And got photobombed by Fat Smitty himself…
And we were on our way!
We arrived at our campsite and camping began about as fast as you can say, “Let’s camp!”
We checked out the nearby river…
We checked out the shower… but only Lucy experienced the shower…
And we quickly made the place our own…
Because it was so very rainy, we only got to build one outside campfire. However, at this writing it has been 2 days since said campfire and one shower, and I still smell it in my hair so…
We cooked hot dogs…
I made guacamole…
And what’s a campfire without sangria?
And throughout our trip, we played a lot of Sorry. A. Lot.
The kids all wanted to bring friends on our little camping adventure, but my husband and I… not so much. Yes, the added work more children bring may have been a reason, but honestly… we felt it was important for us to be with just us. And what we saw was a little rekindling of the sweetness between the siblings. No phones. No technology. Just each other.
It really was bliss.
The first night we fell asleep to rain and woke up to rain. Honestly, I was a bit panicked we’d have to kill all day in the tent. It was a good-sized tent, but guys. I mean…
We decided to venture out and drive to La Push to see what was to be seen. As luck would have it, it was Quileute Days. I don’t really know what that is except we could have bought prepared corn on the side of the road from people waiting for the parade to start. And stuff.
Honestly, I was a little cranky-pantsy because it was so wet and cold. Had it not been wet, it might not have felt so cold. And maybe I would have bought corn on the cob from that lady waiting for the parade to start.
We didn’t end up staying for the parade. We took off to see what this… this Third Beach was. We only made it to the parking area because we found out Third Beach was 1.5 miles of hike-in camping, and well, LUCY:
We say SHOES she hears FLIP-FLOPS.
So we headed back into Forks and hit-up the Thirftway for some fried chicken and jo-jos and something I like to call the Stick of Heart Disease:
Those, my friends are flour tortillas wrapped in bacon, stuffed with a jalapeno cheese-filled hot dog.
And then I rested in my tent that was equipped with everything but dish soap…
Wait. Back-up. Before we went to Third Beach we hit-up Rialto Beach which had the BIGGEST DRIFTWOOD A BEACH HAD EVER HAD DRIFT ON IT:
It was wet. And more wet. But fun…
Oh, and we got to see some long boat racing!
We totally heard them before we saw them.
AND THEN… we discovered an OPEN ROAD. And what’s a responsible parenting team to do when there is a WIDE OPEN ROAD AND NO CARS?
Well, we take pictures on it and let the children do card wheels in the middle of it, that’s what we do!
But only because we had to stop and get a family selfie in front of a sign…
And THEN we went back and crashed… and popped popcorn that burned more than popped.
And we never saw one vampire.
But we had a wet, wonderful time…
