Summer Camping

The bugs were vicious on this year’s family car camping trip until the last day when the wind switched off the lake and kept them a little at bay.  We spent a lot of time by the cold water of the lake, where there are not as many mosquitos, because at our actual campsite there were literally clouds of those nasty guys.  You couldn’t stand still even in the middle of the day.  I was very grateful for my hammock with a bug net.  If you crawled in fast, only a few bugs would find their way in with you, and they were pretty easy to kill inside the net.

The kidlets did a ton of swimming, reading, and playing games.  We had a lot of fun exploring the beach, and it was perfect kayak weather, so I was out in my little yellow boat every day, sometimes by myself, and sometimes with a kidlet next to me on the paddleboard.  We found a lot of fun places to explore by water, but even better was getting to have one on one conversations with my paddling companions.

It was our host daughter’s first time camping, and even though she was really, really not a fan of bugs, she really did enjoy herself and liked it.  I’m not sure how we got all the food and cooking supplies, sleeping bags, hammocks, the tent, camp chairs, kayak, paddle board, lifejackets, and everything else we needed to bring with us into our car with SEVEN pretty much full sized people.  Somehow we did it!  There was literally stuff floor to ceiling in the car, on top of people’s laps.  The ride was pretty peaceful though, because people couldn’t see each other to argue!