4-Day McCall Vacation

One of my stipulations to Rob for this trip was that we had to camp at a place that has both showers and electricity. I need my shower (and a toilet!) and my coffee. I'm pretty low maintenance most of the time so these are simple requests. We used to camp a lot and it was always in tents and usually in some remote location that we had to hike into. One year for my birthday, before we had kids, he told me he had a great surprise for me. He was very excited as we got into the car and started to drive. He wouldn't give me any hints at all but he told me I would love it. He had everything we would need packed away in the trunk. Keep in mind that my birthday is in December so I started to get a little nervous when we headed for the hills. . . We ended up at one of his favorite campsites up by Idaho City; unfortunately, it was snowed under. . . imagine, Idaho City being snowed under in December. . . Anyway, I couldn't be mad because he was such a kid about it, so we actually hiked in and set up our tent- IN THE SNOW.
We have had many camping adventures like this in the past but because we've been so crazy busy, it's been a few years since we've really been able to camp. I think we've camped twice in the last four years. Anyway, when we saw an opening in our calender, we jumped at the chance to get out of town. I'm just too tired this summer to deal with hiking into remote places and peeing in the woods so Rob readily agreed to camp at Ponderosa State Park in McCall. After getting a pretty late start on Sunday, we arrived at the camp ground around 11:00 p.m. I thought for sure the campground would be full and we'd have to search all night for an open spot. Rob had called ahead and was told there would probably be open spaces but they wouldn't take a reservation that late in the day. It turns out that there was one open space for that night but we'd have to vacate it in the morning and hope another would open up. Rob was at the visitor center when they opened at 9:00 a.m. on Monday morning and was able to get the only available space in the campground- it just happened to be right across from the one we were in! It turned out to be the best spot in the campground, in my opinion- the closest spot to the lake and only a 50-pace walk to the bathroom. We spent the day Monday at the lake.

Gloria has always been my little fish. She loves the water and has no problem with the chilly lake temperatures.

It took the rest of us a little bit longer to get in. . .

Emma loves the water and had a great time fetching a plastic water bottle:

Lucy wasn't sure if she liked the water or not but she really likes to be wherever Emma is:

She finally gave up and cuddled in a towel:

When the dogs were good and tired, we took them back to the motor home so we could get on with our next adventure. . .

We decided to row our two blow up rafts into McCall. After all, we were out of ketchup and I forgot my hairbrush, so we needed to stock up on supplies. I took my camera along to get pictures of us floating along and that's when tragedy struck. . . .

. . . yep, my camera got wet. It didn't actually fall in, but it was in one of the grocery bags in the bottom of the raft and there was just enough water in it that the camera was dripping when we pulled it out. . . :( I was so sad. The kids spent the rest of the day drawing pictures of our vacation to cheer me up.

This is the local celebrity, Charlie the Lake Monster. When Gloria heard he was around, she wouldn't venture very far out into the water.

We took a long hike on Tuesday and Gloria was our trail guide. She deftly pointed out the difference between the "Ponderoscious" Pine and the other local trees. She also told us to be on the lookout for the "black-tailed tree-monk squirrel". We were instructed not to eat the berries because we needed to save them for the bears. The hike was beautiful but very long and we were all exhausted by the end of it.

Apparently I turn into an ogre when I fall asleep in the woods.

Gloria and Lucy took a sweet nap.

Zach sketched a great picture of the campground for me.

We had a fire every evening and roasted hot dogs and had s'mores.

My camera made a momentary comeback on the second night after it got wet so I quickly took pics of the kids. It was short lived. . . :(

All in all it was a lovely vacation. I had some camera-withdrawal symptoms but my family was very sympathetic about it. We spent a lot of time on the lake, went on hikes, played games, and just hung out together. We came back on Thursday morning determined to do this more often.