Our Camping Trip

Well, we have officially broken in the camper. We made it out of town at about 10 am on Friday morning for a weekend full of what we hoped would be fun. I have to admit that I was very worried about being in such tight quarters with all of the kids and really no where to go except out into unpredictable weather. By the time we actually arrived at "camp" to set everything up, we had been in and out of the car for six hours. The kids all behaved very well. I finally met one of Grady's coworkers that I actually knew from way back when...before high school. Our friends from Ten Sleep came up and ate dinner with us, which made the kids' day by-the-way. And, one of them had went to school with the wife of our campmates. WOW, that was a mouth full, but all I'm trying to point out is that it is a small world.
Our first morning in the camper (travel trailer for you, Momma Rose & Sharilyn!). The kids ate cereal, Grady made bacon, and I made homemade Buttermilk Cinnamon Rolls. I need to move a shelf in the oven since the bottoms became pretty hard, but I would like to see someone get those made in a campfire! Myles loved the fresh air and altitude. He ate and slept soooooo much up there. What a great camping family we have.
Saturday we headed across the way to where the family was bringing down the cows. The kids hopped on the wheeler with Nana. Yes, we had an extra with us. Talk about a car full. I ended up going down the mountain with Myles in arm to visit a doctor. I have been having some problems which I dismissed as normal, but others were worried, and therefore put some fear into my head (like I needed that!). To put minds at ease, I gave in and had it all checked out. I'm perfectly normal--or at least the ER doctor thinks so--he needs to visit MY house for a day with me and my four children....then we'd see what he'd put me on. I returned to camp on time to help Grady put the babies to bed. He and I stayed up way too late both nights playing games. It was so great to have US time with no television or children to bug in.
While I was going down to Worland, Grady headed back to camp. He got a flat tire on the road, and had to change it with FOUR children. What a man I have. Actually, he said that Fiona slept through it all; and the older three got out to see it and then climbed back in for some movie viewing. Lucky for him. So, the ole suburban has to drive around with an odd wheel....better than a donut I guess.

Sunday we packed up pretty early. It had rained all night and things were too wet for a fire and for the kids to play. We aired up the spare in Ten Sleep and then stopped for our first dump. I was so happy to see that our campmates were right ahead of us pulling into the RV park. When our turn came, I wanted to get out the camera for some pictures, but Grady though I was weird. The entire time, I was fearing the exact duplicate from the only dump I've ever seen which happened to be on RV. I was assured that that could NEVER happen, but wanted to be prepared for the funniest scrapbook page. For the sake of any embarrasement, I chose just to observe with my own eyes. It went so smoothly. I'm glad that I could put that thought out of my mind.

Once in Worland, we dropped the babies off with grandma to get the camper cleaned out and winterized. We were starving for room for the return trip. Simon had ran away at the storage units, and we were both were kind of hoping that he wouldn't return before we left. For starters, we packed too much food and had to haul tons back home in the car only. I'm glad that we put the Thule on top, but still needed more. We had to put the flat in back with the two dogs, and had food and extras packed around all of the carseats. TUNA TROMBLEYS is what you can invision.

We were preparing to winterize with the RV antifreeze. We'd purchased three gallons since the dealership said it would take two. Grady went through all of the steps that the mechanic had told him, and was pumping the antifreeze out of the gallons. He could not get it to pressure up. I was worried about the drain below, but he assured me that it would not pump antifreeze into the fresh water holding tank. He ran to the store to buy some more, and I broke out the owner's manual. I thought that we needed to have the faucets turned on while pumping. Another gallon later, and still no pink stuff came through. Grady started pumping the fifth gallon of antifreeze and ran outside to check. Sure enough, it was pumping the antifreeze right out of some valves that he was told to open. Back to the store for some more. We were finally able to accomplish our goal, but it took us EIGHT gallons of antifreeze. We arrived home at 7:30 last night to pouring rain.

This was sure a trip of laughs. I can't wait for spring so we can begin preparing for more. I think that we need to take a notebook and write down all of our funnies. I can think of more, but for my reader's sake, I'll save them for us.

I hope that you all had a great weekend too!