We traveled the two hours from the farm to our next campground. As we got closer to the campground we noticed that we were heading up some very steep hills. We arrived at the campground and parked at the top because it was a very steep and narrow gravel driveway down. Lukas decided he would walk down and scope out our site before we took the trailer down. He was gone about five minutes before he returned asking for help in unloading his bike. Apparently the driveway into the campsite was very long because he hadn’t even made it down by the time he came back. Sitting there without service and looking at the long, steep driveway got me nervous. What if we couldn’t get down? Or got stuck? To add to my fears Lukas came back and started counting paces from the back of the trailer. Well that’s never a good sign… but he assured me we would fit, if only barely.
I hopped on the bike and rode down the driveway as Lukas and the boys followed me with the truck. I got down to the site and noticed the camp attendant was wearing a full face bug net. Yikes. Hoping this was not an indication of what was to come, I looked at our site. It’s good Lukas was so confident he could squeeze into that site because I was not. Lukas looked at everything and then decided his route and I assumed my position of lookout. After far fewer tries than you would imagine he squeezed us into the site with one minor complication. Our entire truck was blocking the road and we had no more room in our site. 30 one-hundred point turns later I managed to squeeze the truck off the road enough to allow traffic in and out of the park.
Now, back to the bugs. In case you were wondering, yes the full face bug net was an indication of what was to come. There were more mosquitoes and biting flies than I can remember seeing in my lifetime. We had only been here for an hour but the kids and I were all covered in bites. We doused ourselves in bug spray and hoped things would turn around the next day.
Fishing the Creek
Mason had asked about fishing almost weekly leading up to our trip. Finally, we were at a place where we could make his dreams come true. Lukas and Mason set off to the creek to fish while I stayed back with Niko who was sleeping. Even though they didn’t catch anything, Mason was thrilled to have gotten out.
I spent a lot of time inside because I don’t enjoy mosquitos as much as they enjoy me. My family was growing restless and finally convinced me to join them for a bike ride around the campground. What a beautiful place. The creek was much larger than I anticipated and freezing. We watched a family of ducks swim across the rapidly moving water. It is really impressive how fast they can swim!
We took the fishing rods back down to the creek for a last attempt. Still not catching anything but we all enjoyed casting the rods and reeling them back in. We rounded off our last visit by skipping rocks across the water. Since the water was so cold we went back to the trailer to warm up by a fire. We ate dinner and played UNO around the fire. A perfect way to end the day.
