Camping photos

Here's some highlights in words:

• As I am doing laundry the day before we leave, our dryer breaks down.
• The campgrounds is five hours away. That's ten hours total driving time in the car with kids and no electronics except for an iPod and GPS.
• Four family tents right next to each other, with ten kids ranging from 2 to 10, all blond except for our two, and all girls except for one toddler. (There were lots more families, but these were the ones our kids played with the most.)
• One clear night Wander and I use the Planets app on my iPhone to identify a dozen different constellations.
• Wander conducts two plant classes. There are so many plants right around the central meeting area that it takes him almost an hour to move beyond our trees.
• I work on hand sewing a doll dress.
• The kids go fishing and catch grasshoppers for bait.
• Oppressive heat Friday afternoon puts a halt to almost all activity.
• Strong winds in the middle of the night make me fear the tent might be blown over.
• One of the others in the group brought a tent that was missing the poles and stakes. They use rope to tie it to a tree and borrow tent stakes.
• Sparkle and her group of friends comes back from playing and I ask why Glitter isn't with them. Sparkle doesn't remember when she last saw Glitter and I set off on a panicked run to where the kids were playing. Turns out Glitter stayed behind with one of the other girls just out of sight behind a big dirt pile.
• The girls stay up far beyond their normal bedtimes. I simply wait until they are dropping on their feet before tucking them into their sleeping bags.
• Glitter insists on brushing her teeth every morning (good girl!).
• I get to french braid another girl's hair and the next day it has beautiful waves.
• Late one night Wander are talking with the crowd and the evening turns into a bug-eating contest. Apparently a certain type of moth tastes like almonds.
• Trade blanket results in some very nice trades for Wander.
• I attend a class about lacerations on kids led by a nurse and EMT tech. The nurse has special print-outs just for me.
• Saturday night is the group meal. In the middle of the meal Sparkle repeats a sentence that she overheard and tells me the four-level grammatical analysis of the sentence. After the meal, a master storyteller enthralls the kids with scary stories around a campfire.
• On Sunday morning fear of bad weather and the departure of other families lead us to decided to leave as well.
• We return home with two bags full of dirt-encrusted clothes and a malfunctioning dryer.

And now for the pictures:

Campsite
Most of us camped under the trees. Others who wanted more privacy camped further off. We set up camp on the far side of the trees with a gorgeous view of the wildflowers in front of the lake.




Playing in the Dirt
The kids had three main play areas: a pit of dirt in the middle of wildflowers, a pile of dirt across the way, and a "secret" grove of trees.


Critters
Caterpillars

Moths and butterflies

Dogs (brought by other families)

Giant red ants (Sparkle managed to get ant bites all over her leg from ankle to hip.)

Black widow spider with egg sac

Stillborn calf


Going Fishing


Wander teaching


Fire by friction
One man led a class in making fire by friction. No matches. No lighters. No strikers. Just wood, a knife, some rope, some know-how, and lots of persistence.



Rope Making



Donkey Rides
Someone brought two donkeys and gave out free donkey rides.


Chopping Down a Tree
This man was afraid that the winds would knock down the dead tree onto his tent. He started hacking at it after the first night. Finally, after breaking camp and packing up the tent, he managed to hack the tree down. In the first picture you can see the man standing next to the tree in front of the small white and orange tent. In the next picture the tree is on the ground.