Sandy Bottoms - Crouch, ID
New week, same location! This week in the adventures of Rustic Reed and Camper Carrie, we went back to Silver Creek for another weekend of camping, this time with family!
We went to Silver Creek on the Middle Fork of the Payette River last weekend and decided we wanted to come back for a second weekend. Instead of hauling the trailer all the way back down the mountain, put it away so the HOA doesn't yell at us for a code violation, get it back out three days later, and haul it back up, we decided to leave it right where it was. We had enough water still in the tank, so we disconnected the battery, took all the food out of the fridge, and drove the truck home. Before we left, my parents pulled in with their trailer to park it on the other side of the clearing. Now while some of you might think that leaving a trailer in the mountains for a week is crazy, you're probably right :) However, Memorial Day is one of the busiest camping weekends of the year and is the unofficial opening of camping season. Many people drop trailers on Monday or Tuesday to secure a camping spot for the weekend, so this isn't too far out of the norm. "But Reed, what about the people that tried saving that site with a tent and camp chair last weekend and you still came in and parked there???" That still could have happened, and we would have welcomed the neighbors! The other truck and trailer in the picture are my parents. Before we left on Sunday, they drove their trailer up and parked it with ours. The unwritten (or maybe they ARE written) rules are that if you want to leave a trailer/tent behind, you have to stay a night in it. They stayed Sunday night and came home Monday morning.
When we pulled in, it was raining and hailing so hard we had to take shelter in my parents trailer. They took Parker up the night before, so it was Carrie, Emmy, Colby, and me. All 7 of us piled into theirs to wait out the rest of the storm before getting our things set up. We needed firewood, so Dad and I set off with our chainsaws up the mountain to find some trees he had spotted a few weeks ago when he camped here. An hour and four trees later, we got back to camp with some work for the boys to do. They were such hard workers and had the truck emptied in no time. We estimated about a half cord of wood on this trip, which was more than enough to keep us warm for the weekend.
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| Unloaded truck of all four trees |
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| Colby wants to be just like daddy when he grows up |
As I was rummaging through the garage to make sure we had everything for last week's trip, I came across my old airsoft guns from before we had kids. I have a pump-action Mossberg 590 replica, and a pistol. I want my sons to know how to use guns safely so they aren't scared of them later in life and I figured airsoft guns would be a good starting point. We went over the safety rules of firearms (never point at anything you don't want to destroy, finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot, know your target AND what's behind it, and always treat it like it's loaded) and got them shooting. They know to not point them at people, even when joking, and to be aware of where they are pointing when walking around camp. I told them if they can get the rules down on these 'toys', we can talk about shooting real firearms in a couple months. Colby doesn't have the hand strength to move the action on the pistol, so he spent the weekend with the Mossberg shooting trees and leaves. We would often find him just sitting in his chair aiming off into the forest. Who knows what game he was playing in his head, but it was cute :)
Not only did my parents come up for the weekend, but my brother Scott and his daughter Ambry came up for Friday night. We had gone out and found another tree someone else had only taken half of (second wood-finding trip of the weekend), so they all had their own dinner tables. As for the helmets, we finally got smart and brought their bikes along for the trip. The site is flat enough they could ride around and be OK, and we were at the end of a road, so there wasn't any worry about cars driving in and out all weekend.
I always try to get out for a run when we go camping. It's always much more enjoyable to run through nature than city streets, especially when it isn't familiar. This was a dirt bike/ATV trail that went up the mountain. I did four miles up, gaining around 1,200 feet in elevation on the climb. The best part is always running back down. It's fun to feel fast once in a while :) On this run, I was trying out my new headphones, the
AfterShokz Titanium bone conducting ones. I've been running with Airpods, but they are starting to hurt my ears with anything over 30 minutes. I'll leave a more detailed review after using them a couple times, but my first impression is pretty good. I like being able to hear everything going on around me. It saved me from getting run over by motorcycles a couple times, so that was good. The sound quality for my podcast was better than expected and quite good as well. The bluetooth connection was very quick and easy to set up. I didn't lose connection at any point, and I like the button on the side to pause things quickly. They stayed in place and I think I'm really going to like them. Check them out in the link
here.
Mom and dad volunteered to take the kids for a while and kicked Carrie and I out for a four-wheeler ride under the guise of "Go find another tree we could cut down." Sure, dad. That will be top priority on our list :) We set up the road to where Dad and I found the four trees earlier and continued on past it. Yes, we did find some trees to cut down, but kept going to see where the road went. It dawned on us a little later that this was the first time the both of us had been without the kids since the shutdown in the middle of March. It's crazy how much both of us have missed dating each other. Never stop dating your spouse is such good advice, but it's been hard to do with no babysitters or places to
go since everything got shut down. Now that things are opening up again, we are looking forward to getting out a little more. We drove until the road literally ended. It just stopped. We came around a corner and WHAM there was a bush in the middle of the road. And it wasn't like it was an unused road that had become overgrown. THERE WAS NO MORE ROAD! We got off and walked down it a ways to make sure, and that was it. But it was such a beautiful place and such a great time of day, we had to stop for a selfie :)
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| I sure do love this crazy girl |
Sundays are no-four-wheeler days when camping, so the kids spent a lot of time on their bikes. We pulled out
The Great Dalmuti and dealt it up. Dalmuti is one of the unofficial family games of the McCashland family. It's very similar to Scum, but has an official deck of twelve 12's, eleven 11's, and so on. The goal of the game is to get rid of your hand first. The first player lays down as many of a single number of cards as they want (four 12's, for example). The next play has to play the same number of cards of a lower value (four 11's would play). If no one has any cards to lay down (don't have a set of four, don't have anything lower than the last player, or strategically don't want to play anything), they say 'skip' and the last player to lay down wins the hand and gets to choose anything to start the next round. Once people start going out, it gets really interesting. The first player to go out becomes the 'king' and the second is the 'queen'. The last two players are the 'peon's'. The last person to go out has to give their two most valuable cards to the king, and the second-to-last player has to give their single best card to the queen. Consequently, the king and queen get to send their worst cards to the lower two. Thus, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Everyone gets to move chairs at the end of each hand to reflect their finishing positions. At home, we have used chairs of different comfort for the different positions, with the most rickety, uncomfortable chair being reserved for the peon. We considered making the peon of this game sit on a stump, but decided none of us wanted to be that serious about it.
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| Emmy wearing big brother's hat and looking adorable while doing it |
Sunday night, Ron, one of my dad's friends, came up to drop his trailer for the following weekend. Somehow he became known as 'Uncle Ron' and the kids couldn't wait for him to show up, even though I don't think they knew who he was. Ron brought his nephew Matt (pictured) with him for the night (remember the stay-the-night unwritten rule?). The kids were so happy to have them here, they followed them around for the next half-hour while they got set up. Just watching and learning, I guess...
Like I said earlier, Memorial Day weekend is one of the busiest camping weekends of the year, and we were in a hotspot of campers. We have done this long enough to know that if you try to leave any time before noon on Monday, you will get so backed up in traffic, you could easily double the drive home, which with 3 kids in the backseat, doesn't sound fun. Carrie and I had gone tree hunting on Saturday night, so we loaded everyone up and went to chop them down. These ones were higher up the hill, so I grabbed a saw and started climbing. I dropped the trees, cut them into sections, and rolled them down. By my magnificent skill and no luck whatsoever, all the pieces landed in the exact same spot,
making it easy to turn them into logs. Carrie even picked up a saw and went to work. We filled the bed of Dad's truck with a load, and Carrie and I stayed back to finish slicing while the rest of the family drove back to dump it. These two trees ended up being another cord of wood. With Ron and my parents camping there next weekend, they should have more than enough to last and keep them warm. Overall, it was a great trip!!!
Mom and dad volunteered to take the kids for a while and kicked Carrie and I out for a four-wheeler ride under the guise of "Go find another tree we could cut down." Sure, dad. That will be top priority on our list :) We set up the road to where Dad and I found the four trees earlier and continued on past it. Yes, we did find some trees to cut down, but kept going to see where the road went. It dawned on us a little later that this was the first time the both of us had been without the kids since the shutdown in the middle of March. It's crazy how much both of us have missed dating each other. Never stop dating your spouse is such good advice, but it's been hard to do with no babysitters or places to
go since everything got shut down. Now that things are opening up again, we are looking forward to getting out a little more. We drove until the road literally ended. It just stopped. We came around a corner and WHAM there was a bush in the middle of the road. And it wasn't like it was an unused road that had become overgrown. THERE WAS NO MORE ROAD! We got off and walked down it a ways to make sure, and that was it. But it was such a beautiful place and such a great time of day, we had to stop for a selfie :)
Sundays are no-four-wheeler days when camping, so the kids spent a lot of time on their bikes. We pulled out The Great Dalmuti and dealt it up. Dalmuti is one of the unofficial family games of the McCashland family. It's very similar to Scum, but has an official deck of twelve 12's, eleven 11's, and so on. The goal of the game is to get rid of your hand first. The first player lays down as many of a single number of cards as they want (four 12's, for example). The next play has to play the same number of cards of a lower value (four 11's would play). If no one has any cards to lay down (don't have a set of four, don't have anything lower than the last player, or strategically don't want to play anything), they say 'skip' and the last player to lay down wins the hand and gets to choose anything to start the next round. Once people start going out, it gets really interesting. The first player to go out becomes the 'king' and the second is the 'queen'. The last two players are the 'peon's'. The last person to go out has to give their two most valuable cards to the king, and the second-to-last player has to give their single best card to the queen. Consequently, the king and queen get to send their worst cards to the lower two. Thus, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Everyone gets to move chairs at the end of each hand to reflect their finishing positions. At home, we have used chairs of different comfort for the different positions, with the most rickety, uncomfortable chair being reserved for the peon. We considered making the peon of this game sit on a stump, but decided none of us wanted to be that serious about it.
making it easy to turn them into logs. Carrie even picked up a saw and went to work. We filled the bed of Dad's truck with a load, and Carrie and I stayed back to finish slicing while the rest of the family drove back to dump it. These two trees ended up being another cord of wood. With Ron and my parents camping there next weekend, they should have more than enough to last and keep them warm. Overall, it was a great trip!!!
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