Unexpected Adventures

Our church does a group camp out every year. Last year we signed up, but chickened out the week before because we had company coming to town or some other excuse. Ever the optimist, I signed us up again this year, even though we've never actually tried camping with William. No time like the present - because as you all know, I love camping.

Now, to be truthful, we weren't really camping as we stayed in nice cabins with beds in them and everything. There was a kitchen with electricity, a stove, refrigerator, freezer, etc. So, we roughed it, but I don't know if I would classify it as camping.

We were about 15 miles away from the campground, the roads on our map were blocked by huge barricades marked "ROAD CLOSED". This was unfortunate because...well we didn't know how else to get there. We ended up taking a crazy detour through small town Illinois without ever really knowing if we were going to find our way to the park. I think we probably tacked on about 45 minutes to an hour of extra driving time - but proud that we figured it out using only my keen sense of direction and a small one page map of Illinois.

Our family arrived at the group site on in time for dinner. We grilled and set up in our cabin. It was warm - maybe in the upper 80's, which wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been 23847268734628% humidity out. Just sitting in a lawn chair watching John grill made me sweat. William, who doesn't believe in sitting in lawn chairs, was drenched in sweat as he insisted on running in every direction with his poor mama chasing after him to keep him safe.

The group camp site we stayed at in Pere Marquette State Park

Our cabin is the one in the middle...see how close the fire pit is?
Inside the luxury cabins - windows with screens! And a light!

Everyone else arrived and we had a nice time visiting and watching the kids chase fireflies as the sun went down. Someone built a campfire and we enjoyed some music and treats. The bigger kids were playing some version of flashlight tag/scream as loud as you can and run away game. Which was great fun to watch, but wasn't conducive to putting William to bed at him regularly scheduled time. The kids were hiding around the cabins and in the trees letting out terrifying shrieks every time someone ran by them. So, William stayed up pretty late. We finally got him down about 10:30 or 11 - roughly two hours later than normal. John and I went to bed ourselves shortly after when we discovered a problem.

It was still in the lower 80's and 50000% humidity. After listening to stories from last year's camp out (temps in the 100's during the day and in the lower 50's at night), I brought our super warm sleeping bags and fleece pajamas all around. It wasn't until I was laying on my cot trying to sleep that I realized how miserable it was trying to sleep. So, we made some changes including partially undressing William in his sleep and settled in for the night.

That is until about 2am. I'll spare you all the details, but William was awake from about 2am until about 6am - and mama with him. The poor kid was trying so hard to go back to sleep. I could hear him rolling around in his portable crib and then moving around trying to get comfortable. Several times, I pulled him out of the crib and put him in the bed with us. A poopy diaper, 4 trips to the bathrooom (standard pregnancy consequence for me), 15 kicks to my head and a total of maybe 2 hours of sleep for me made for a rough morning. But, the cabins are close together and when one group of kids are up....all of them are up. But! We had big plans for the day so off we went.

Saturday morning, there were kids events at the State Park. William would rather watch the boats go by on the river.
Suffering from lack of sleep. William was NOT happy to be pulled away from the highway and boat watching. Although it looks like he is just sitting there, this is the start of a tantrum....
William trying to run in a relay
Finally mama helps...
Found one! Yay! Here Dada..
More games...somehow all the little kids (under 7 ended) ended up on this side of the rope. None of the older kids could be convinced to switch sides, so John is trying to even things out. I think he is still sore - my husband doesn't do anything halfway! Also notice William trying to help...

Tug of war started and William is trying to figure out what in the world was going on...I was just as happy to have him out of the way so no one would step on him!
After watching several rounds, William finally gets the hang of tug of war - too bad everyone else is done playing!
William really thinks he is one of the big kids...these big boys were sure great with letting him hang out with them. Sippy cup and all!
After fun and games, our group went to the apple orchard to pick apples! We've never been with William because...well, we're lazy and didn't go last year. William was SO intent on the tractor that pulled the wagon out to the apple trees - he cried when we got off to pick apples!
So happy riding the tractor wagon!
Inspecting the apples before...
Tasting it!
If you look carefully, you can see he got several bites out of the apple - hopefully someone checked to make sure it was an okay apple to be eating....
Picking Mama a red apple from the tree with Dada's help

Saturday night we talked about packing things up and going home. None of us slept well (or at all) and we were worried it would be a repeat. Somehow we got really busy and never made a plan - we ended up staying. William got to bed earlier and went down right away. Even with kids screaming and adults laughing very nearby. And he slept all night long. He only woke up after we had packed most of the cabin up and were getting ready to wake him. He was SO tired!

Unfortunately, I wasn't as lucky. I was up listening for William, making trips to the bathroom and listening to the wind blow through the trees. Although it wasn't at hurricane levels anymore, Tropical Storm Ike started blowing over our campsite in the early hours of Sunday. It rained and was very windy. I did manage to get more sleep than Friday night, but it sure wasn't quality sleep.

Sunday morning, we got up and packed everything up. It was still raining pretty hard and we were anxious to get home. We went up to the lodge for a quick breakfast and to say goodbye to everyone else. However, after eating and helping with clean up, the ranger came in to report that no one was going anywhere - with all the rain a big mudslide had washed out the road. He thought he might be able to clear it with a snowplow or other machinery. But, he also thought we might want to get comfortable as it could take him awhile to get to the equipment and clear the way out of the camp. So, I sent John out into the tropical storm to take some pictures of the campgrounds.

Standing at the steps of our cabin. The distance from our cabin to the lodge up on the hill (all meals were here). The bathroom was to the right of the cabin on the right side of the frame. At the top of the frame you'll notice some pink. Yep, I sent John out into the tropical storm with only a pink umbrella to shield himself.

Upclose-r picture of the 1930's lodge...very nice!


The one lane, uphill curvy road that leads out of the campsite...unless there is a mudslide.

Finally, the mudslide was cleared and our whole group drove out - no one wanted to be stuck by a second mudslide! This time we opted to try and take the ferry home instead of the crazy off the map detour from Friday. We checked and the ferry was still running in spite of all the rain - YAY!

The first ferry we took on the way home (Brussels ferry). These ferries are way smaller than the Washington State ferries we are used to. They looked kind of like a pontoon boat with lanes drawn on them. Maybe 20 cars fit on it? Not at all what I was expecting.
William's first ferry ride! 9/14/08. I wanted to take him out of the car and take a picture, but I knew he was going to throw a fit when I tried to put him back in his seat. So, in he stayed.
After the Brussels ferry, we took the Golden Eagle ferry. Again, much smaller than what we are used to, but it worked. That is, until we started driving! The Golden Eagle ferry dock is roughly 12 miles away from our house and we were very relieved to be almost home! When we got off the second ferry, there was really only 2 choices about how to get home. This area is really rural without a lot of cross streets or major roadways. Right or left was the only option, so right we went. Until we went to turn onto Hwy C...the road was closed due to flooding with emergency vehicles blocking the way. So, back we went past the ferry to make a left turn. The above picture is what we drove through for about 5 miles until we reached the interstate. All the cars in front of us were other members of our congregation. It was pretty stressful driving (me) and several times we almost turned around to go back to the ferry. However, we knew everyone in our car was getting hungry and tired - taking the ferry back would mean at least another 3 hours of riding in the car.
More flooded road. Boy, were we happy to see the interstate....by the way, we are driving on the left side of the road because the water was more shallow there. You can kind of see the yellow line through the water on the left side of the car in front of us. Since we were driving super slow, John was able to lean the upper part of his body out the window to get this picture. We like to live on the edge :)

PS It was still raining when we got home. According to the weather reports and our own baby swimming pool rain gauge, we got roughly 6 inches of rain between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Luckily everything inside the house was dry and cozy because after all our adventures, I sure needed a nap!