Brrrrrrrr!

When I made camping reservations East of Rainer a couple months ago, I assumed it would be Juneuary here on Whidbey and balmy to the East.  While in truth weather on Whidbey was gray and rainy while I was away, it was toasty and sunny for weeks in advance and is toasty and sunny here.  And at our Bumping Lake campground, it was unseasonably cold (high of 45) and rainy.  The boys had a great time nonetheless, and I appreciated their fortitude.  Our tent leaked.  We used the car to warm ourselves up sometimes.  I figured out to put our canopy tent (the one we put over a picnic table) over the sleeping tent, and that kept the puddles out of the tent on our second night. 

The Chinook Pass (where you see the boys with the snow) only opened a couple of weeks ago, and obviously most people wait to camp in the mountains until later in the summer when it is warmer.  The nice thing was that in a huge campground, we saw almost no other human beings (and the boys and I have yet to watch enough horror movies to be on alert for this).  We brought our kick scooters around, and the boys had a fantastic time zooming around the roads and paths.  If it had been crowded, they might have knocked over a kindly little old lady from Pasadena, and then there would have been Trouble.  As it was, they had fun.  I scootered, too.

It reminds me that in all the planning we can do (where are the beautiful trails, the beautiful scenery), it is hard to predict what will be magical.  Scootering was magical.

They went fishing, and were pretty quickly satisfied with that experience.  It was cold and windy right by Bumping Lake, and standing to fish does not warm you like scootering does.

We lit fires, they cooked smores, I was reminded that eating chilled watermelon first thing on a cold morning is somewhat cold.

They are ready to camp again.  Me, too.  It will be warmer, and it will be more crowded.