Just imagine the worst... and mulitiply it by ten!

That is how I felt. From the very beginning our camping trip was a disaster. My husband was out of town for almost a week and asked me to meet him up in McCall for a camping trip. With lots of hesitation I agreed and somehow managed to pack by myself for my family and headed for the hills.

BUT along the way we faced many obsticles... and I guess if my husband and I are still married after this weekend then maybe we will get through anything cause he didn't get to see my inner beauty this weekend at all and neither did our fellow campers! And really that is an understatement.

Our list of disasters in order:

1) my son threw up in the car on the way to the mountains... said his tummy hurt

2) got to Cascade and met up with my husband and we headed for Stolle Meadows/Warm Lake area expecting to find this. Photo courtesty of Mike Huston

But instead found this... (Also I must note this photo was taken from the web? Not sure who photographed it but it wasn't me. I was no longer in a photographing mood at this point.

I guess there was a huge fire in 2007 that burned down this area that we drove an additional 2 hours to go see. So we stopped and let the kids roam in the burned down trees and had lunch. The mosquitos were insane, it was hot, and they were working on the roads so there were tractors everywhere. My husband begged us to just stay there for the night... but there was no way I was staying so I said no. I said lets find a spot back in Cascade....


So my husband being a sweet and patient man... agreed.

Get to Cascade around 3:30pm on a Friday afternoon and not a campsite in sight. Packed.... full... went to spot after spot and everything was gone... Drove up to the area where my husband proposed... I was so excited because we hadn't been there since then and same thing... EVERYTHING was taken. We found a spot FINALLY and my husband counted on me to wind this huge stupid toy hauler that was probably the size of a mobile home through this windy hilly road. And then "BAM!" I backed it into a tree root that seriously ripped the bottom corner of the toy hauler.

I so expected my husband to yell at me and he looked at me and said "Can you still get us back to that spot!" LOL he really said that. I am almost in tears cause I just ripped up the camper and I was so mad at myself and all he can think about is "Can you still get us back there?"

So after about 30 minutes of trying to back up this camper into this spot that was nearly impossible, two fellow campers from another camp site took on the responsibility of trying to get us back there. Finally my husband put aside his manly pride and determination and realized there was no way in "heck" we were ever going to get back there. So we spent another 45 minutes trying to get the stupid thing back out of that spot.

Thank God for kind people cause the two fellow campers who stopped to help us invited us over to there camp grounds. They had about 15 people and a great location so at this point... we decided to burden them cause our only other option was to go home!

So the rest of the night was great. Had a little to much wine that night, but I had a bad day so I sinfully justified it. :D The next morning Jacob decided to bathe in an entire bottle of mosquito spray... no kidding he really did and so we had none left. So my husband went up to get some at the nearest town. I decided to take the boys on a 4 wheeler ride. And guess what... it wouldn't start. Yes the kids left the keys in the ignition and the battery died. Husband gone... dumb blonde chick doesn't have a clue what to do so I had to ask for help... I hate asking for help. So I had to ask these campers for help again!! Although I do think the men there felt a little thrilled that they could show off all their man skills... so they jumped started our 4 wheeler. They also made sure I knew "NOT" to turn the 4 wheeler off after I left.

So the boys and I headed up for the mountains and finally took some of our first pictures up camping. I got to use my brand new Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 lens. Which is amazing by the way. I still need to get used to it but I got some pretty great shots. Most of these are SOOC. Some of them were slightly over exposed with the sunflare so I made some adjustments, but still getting used to the lens so all things considered I was happy with the photos.



There is some lens distortion on these but i left it cause I really don't have the energy right now to fix the photo! But great sun flare!


So we are having fun on the 4 wheeler and enjoying the scenery. Found a trail and followed it up the mountain for awhile.


Saw a few cows on the 4 wheeler... Adda chased them


THEN... dun dun dun... Adda (stupid dog) runs out in front of the 4 wheeler and then stops. I slam on my breaks. And I guess the brakes lock up sometimes and I guess i am supposed to know to use the wrench inside the tool kit behind the 4 wheeler to release the pressure in the brakes. So the brakes are jammed and I cannot get them to release. I remember thinking maybe the gears jammed up at one point so I tried to go forward and the 4 wheeler literally will not go and then all of a sudden jumps foward and the kids and I almost went over the side of the mountain on the 4 wheeler. Despite what I was told I turned the 4 wheeler off and headed back down the mountain. We hiked 2 miles back to camp and we were missing about 3 hours. No one new where we were or where to look for us so we had no choice. I felt like this at the time



only angrier. I was so mad I was in tears. I was done with camping... I wanted to go home. My husband begged me to stay and said it couldn't get any worse plus the kids were still having fun. And he was right they were... here are a few pics from later on in the day.

The kids playing in the sand getting dirty and swimming in the creek.


My sweet little Madison always puts a smile on my face


And God and his majestic beauty!


But my husband was SO wrong about the camping trip because then our hot water heater stopped working and we had to boil hot water to give the kids a bath which took forever. Then the stupid carbon monoxide alarm wouldn't quit going off and it didn't run on batteries so we had to cut the wires. Josh and I got in a fight cause I was the biggest "B" you could have met at that time. I went to bed early... I was done. Oh did I mention my husband who is an extremely patient man... waited until I was sound asleep before he even attempted to go to bed cause he just flat did not want to be around me!

I was looking forward to waking up Sunday morning and enjoying a cup of coffee and then heading home. And our coffee pot broke Sunday morning and I woke up with a 102 fever. I had a headache the whole way home down the windy bumpy roads back to Meridian Idaho. And it was at that point that I decided that I am done with camping for the year.

And after I get home and I download all the photos I took which was maybe only like 30 images... I realized I didn't take one photo of my son Jacob... and that is now my biggest regret.... :(

I think that this may have officially been the longest blog ever... and wouldn't this make a good movie? Only my version of the movie I would be sweet and proper, and patient and not yelling, and not crying, and not being a not so nice person... Have you ever had a Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day? oh and please excuse the word stupid which I used over and over in my blog... LOL! Just thinking about this camping trip makes me cringe.