Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Lake Tahoe Camping Trip - need to add pictures

We booked the dates for this camping trip months ago - really hard for us to plan that far ahead!  But we did it :)  Even a couple days before I kept thinking we should cancel because there was so much going on.  Then we saw the weather forecast - showers and thunderstorms 70-90% each day we were there.  Another reason to not go :)  But we went - with extra tarps, rain covers and changes of clothing.  It didn't rain once when we were there. It was actually great weather. Not too hot and definitely not cold.

I realized while there that this was really Porter's first official camping trip. (If you don't count the one when he was a baby and Eliza was carrying him and tripped.) We took him once when he was about 6 months old (when Eliza tripped holding him and he went flying) and then Porter and I "visited" the rest of the family for a couple of hours when Brett took the kids camping a couple years ago over Halloween (and I painted the entire inside of the house with Porter as my assistant).  No wonder he was in heaven the whole time. He made himself right at home with other kids there as well as the family camped  next to us (and their toys).  He was fascinated with the fire.  Whenever we had a fire going he would sit in a camping chair right up close to it and stare at it.  Eliza kept worrying that he would fall in and would always want me to sit right next to him.

We met one family who's little girl knew Claire and Eliza from Swim Team. She told her mom, "Claire and Eliza get all the points for our team!"  Haha. C & E liked that :)

I would say a majority of the time that we were at our camping site, Porter would race around on his "Glider". (A bike with no pedals, that our friend Chuckie gave us).  Well, racing, is exaggerating. He was super slow, but he thought he was fast.  I couldn't believe how much he rode that thing.  Around and around the camp ground (the paved road part).  It was a pretty small campground (26 sites) and pretty empty, but enough other kids that people were careful. He would sidle right up to a group of kids and say, "Hey! Wait for me!"   (ignored a lot!)  or he would go up to them and say, "Look at my awesome bike! Hey! This is my bike!"  I was laughing because they probably were thinking "Big deal!"  but a lot of the kids were nice to him and when they would pass by they would say, "Hi Porter!"   He never got tired of it.  The older kids did get tired of me assigning them to walk or bike with him :)  Oh well!  By the time it was time to come home, he actually was getting faster. There were a couple other kids with the gliders who were SUPER fast so I think he caught on somewhat.    He has never shown any interest in any of the tricycles or scooters, but this thing has captivated him!

We managed to get all 8 of our bikes loaded up on the roof and the rear bike rack.  It looked very interesting.  I think we need a trailer......we almost didn't bring the bikes because of the rainy forecast, but then I got worried with rain we really wouldn't have anything to do.

Lake Tahoe is beautiful - I couldn't  believe how clear the lake is.  You can swim out really far because it stays shallow for a long time and there is nothing but sand and water.  It was a little cool, but once you got in it felt nice.  I was so glad we brought our bikes despite what a pain it was to load them up (think jigsaw puzzle).

I asked Porter if he wanted to roast a marshmallow on the last night.  He said, "No....yuck!"  I should have left it at that, but I couldn't believe he didn't want one. So I had him taste it - then he was sold.  Just like the rest of us already were...well, except maybe Brett.

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