camping {the hike.}

We went on a hike in the Wild Life Reservoir near where we camped last weekend.  

It was to be a short, 2 mile hike.  

It was not.  

More like 5 miles.  

5 miles with 2 babies.  

My shoulders and hips may never be the same.  

On our hike, we experienced all kinds of..... nature.

We had one heck of a "tour guide".  

He spotted a buffalo on the trail.  

He asked that we call him Bear Grylls during the remainder of our trip (since the whole Bobby Flay thing didn't work out).  

I can see the resemblance.  Can't you?

So we hiked right up close to said buffalo.  Which is precisely the point at which we made the wrong turn.  We'll blame the buffalo.  

He sure was magnificent.  

And his poop is huge.  I wear a size 10.

Miles was an awesome hiker.  

He never once complained of being tired.  

He just slowed down.  

And it did get a little treacherous at times.  

So eventually, he got a free ride.  

Ella enjoyed a free ride the entire time.  This is the only photo I have of her because she was mostly on my back.  

And after awhile, I was too tired to care if I got any good pictures and wishing I had left the dang, heavy DSLR camera in the car.  I need a little point & shoot for such occasions, methinks.  

We took a break to figure out where the heck we went wrong and what our next course of action should be.  

And we found more nature.  

Nature is cool.  

And so is hiking.  But it wears the little people out.  

Who am I kidding?  It wears the big people out too.  

How cute are footed sleepers and vests?  He insisted on the vest.  I insisted he not walk on the dirt in his footed sleeper.  Not one single person at our camp agreed with me so I dealt with my neurosis and let him get dirty.  We were camping after all.

And after a long, fun day we retreated to our home away from home.  

I would like to tell you that we slept peacefully all night long.  We did not.  There were, in the very least, the following disruptions:

 1.) munchkin #2 had spastic wakings throughout the night.  

2.) mother of the year forgot to throw a pull up on her not-quite-potty-trained-through-the-night boy which resulted in a wet sleeping bag.

3.) a bear dog got loose from it's campsite across the way and attacked our tent.

4.) a claustrophobic woman in a new, close fitting but very warm sleeping bag (which coincidentally resulted in the same kind of spastic wakings as with munchkin #2).
5.) 2 raccoons attempting to hi-jack the ice chest.

So, the moral of the story is that no matter what, camping has been ruled awesome by all family members and we anxiously await another chance to get away.