Crazy Campers Part 1

Our camping vacation started to get fun only two minutes from home. With the tunes blarrin, and everyone giddy with excitement that we were on our way, we heard and felt this big THUD!! Our trailer had come unhitched and rammed into the back of our Suburban. Good thing we drive a tank, no harm done. We quickly reattached ourselves to all of our belongings and began our trip once again!!

We had a few stops to make before reaching Jackson lake, but we were in no hurry. We were on vacation! One stop was to get the kids a special camping gear addition, their very own headlamps. Now they could be just like their crazy parents!!!

It was so great when they were all running around at night, with all their new "camp friends" (I love how easy it is for kids to make new friends), we could spot them a mile away!! This in return, meant we could sit by the fire and relax, those headlamps were worth every penny!!

We arrived at Jackson Lake around 4:00 and we were so excited to get set up. I had reserved us a campsite online, so we knew we were at site #52.

We drove into a very busy campground, lots of Fourth of July regulars, that probably reserved their spots the year before. As we rounded the loop, we passed the site #52 marker, but had to drive around again because we missed the actual site, or so we thought. When we spotted the marker again, it became clear, we had seen it correctly the first time, that was our site! We now understood why this spot hadn't been taken. In the middle of this wonderful, mosquito filled pond, sat a picnic table. Next to that was a small, less wet area that was made to house a tent. We were home!!! Erik and I looked at the setting before us, and then looked at the four children we call ours. A ton of thoughts raced in our heads at the same time. No words needed, both of us thinking, mosquitos, wet, loud close neighbors, no room to put or rowdy kids, NO THANK-YOU!! We then both looked at each other and said, "this is not going to work," and headed back to the car.

This campground has a no refund policy, but we didn't care. We would rather drive all the way back home and put up the tent, in the dark, in our own backyard than set up camp in the middle of Kermits habitat. I had to deal with an impatient, unkind, unhappy, campground worker that despised people like me, who complained. But again, I didn't care. I filled out a "request for refund" form, so we will see in 6-8 weeks, if we get our money back.

Unsure of what we were going to do next, knowing that our kids are all excited to camp, we had to come up with something. Finding another campground, with vacancies, on Fourth of July weekend, was near to impossible. But God is bigger than that!! I overheard a very exciting piece of information, while standing their filling out the form. They had one spot left, I overheard the rude girl tell someone else on the phone! Site #13 had not been reserved!!!! It was just sitting there, waiting for us to arrive!! We went and checked it out, it was perfect!

We proudly set up our tents amongst the large, fancy, RV's that surrounded us. This site was electric, so we had to pay a little more and camp with the RV'rs, but it was perfect. It was right by the lake, had a large grassy lawn, dry ground, neighbors a good distance away, close to the water spicket, and we had electricity to blow up our air mattress!!! It even had a tree fort, for the kids to play in!! We couldn't ask for anything more!!

This was the fort on our site, that sat behind our tents. The kids thought it was a cool hide out!

If we don't get our money back for the first site, it's okay. If we were going to pay $58.00 for our fist site location, I would gladly pay $118.00 for our new location. The difference was that drastic. I wish I had a picture of the first site to show you. I was just in such shock, taking a picture was not on my mind. I was more thinking, get me out of here!!! Don't ever go to Jackson lake with online reservations for site #52!!!

We set up camp in no time

All the little helpers!! With the eight extra hands Daddy had, he couldn't get those stakes in fast enough!!!

Matty was a big helper, "heaw (here) go dad!"

The first night we had BBQ chicken, Matt liked it!!

So did Ella

We had only been camping for few hours and Matt already looked like this!!

Cleaning himself up a little. Not to much though, gotta keep the campin look!!!

The first nights sunset, so pretty!!

Crazy campers!!!

Stay tuned for Part 2