The other day, I met a bear
The other day
I met a bear
A great big bear
Oh way out there
I tried to remember those lyrics, wanting to contribute some song to the campfire sing-a-long to which my 15 girl scout hostesses invited the boys and I. They gave us s'mores and banana boats after-all and the only thing I brought was a hastily assembled bouquet of native grasses and a "goofy guests" verse to "He's got the whole world in His hands". Perhaps I should start at the beginning...
The boys and I camped at Inks Lake in Central Texas this past weekend. Kathleen made the arrangements and stayed behind with Anna as Ben, Jack and I loaded the Subaru and headed out for our Saturday night stay. Inks Lake is a rather nice state park about 90 minutes (or less!) from our house. Camping in Central Texas isn't the best (follow that link to see how I broke that promise), but we gotta do what we gotta do. Ironically, the boys and I got the campsite that the Choir was in (again, follow that link).
The site was about 30 metres from where the car could be parked. I had two boys, neither of which can be completely unsupervised. I had to set up the camp and be a dad at the same time. It was a bit difficult, but I managed. Once the tent was up and snacks served, I took the boys swimming at the lake. We met a very nice family ('hi Jose, Monika, Joseph and Jaden!') and played around for a couple of hours. Then it was time to head back to the camp, for cooking and eating.
That went pretty well. As we were setting up, the Girl Scout leader from the next camp over invited us for s'mores and banana boats later on. A very welcome invitation that was. The scouts totally owned me in the "campfire making" category - they had a roaring fire when all I had (initially) was a feeble matchstick. And, of course, Jack noticed ("Daddy, why is there fire so much bigger"). Eventually, we got our fire popping and all was well. Cooked hotdogs and had dinner, followed by a pre-s'more marshmallow or two. Then it was time to visit the Girl Scouts.
That was fun. We sat around and sang songs, roasted marshmallow and had a good time. Jack immediately joined in the sing-a-longs and Ben eventually caught on. We stayed for an hour and then went on a moonlight hike, which both boys enjoyed immensely (the super power flashlights probably had something to do with).
Sleep that night was a challenge for a bit - both boys kept screwing around it the tent until I had to put my foot down and separate them. Sleep eventually followed and was too-soon followed by morning.
We went on a long hike into the granite (documented by the craptacular cellphone camera, below) and loaded up into the car for the drive home. It was quite fun!
Posted at 02:46PM May 07, 2007 by schnee in Life |