Pinecrest 2014

Once again, we leave our annual camping trip in Pinecrest tired and dirty, but full of good memories and already with anticipation for next summer's adventure.  This year we had a wonderful, huge camp site with, oddly, 4 empty sites around us-- unheard of at super-popular Pinecrest!  This means our nights were quiet and we had lots of space to spread out.  So, here are a few glimpses of life around the camp this summer...

Playing card games by lantern light.

Tent snuggles.

Dave, campfire chef extraordinaire!

The girls making their own little house with a kitchen in the clump of trees that was on our site.  Totally remember playing this as a kid myself!

Family Frisbee game.

Giving huge thumbs up to a new discovery this year-- REECES PEANUT BUTTER CUP S'MORES!!

And here are some of the activities that filled our time...

On our first night we went to a Park Ranger presentation about bats.  It was really interesting!  The girls liked seeing some of the rescued bats up close in their box ("Awww, they're SO CUTE!!" Delia declared).  Dave and I loved when the presenter turned on her high-frequency noise detector at sunset and we could hear all the bats in the area come out and start echo-locating!

Last summer we discovered this nearby pack station that let you lead their horses around the trails for just $10!  This was such a highlight of our camping trip last year, we had to return.

Ella rode Petey, who was fiesty and not all that interested in obeying Dave tugging at his halter.  Delia rode Gretel, who was sweet and gentle.

This is such a lovely morning!  As we let the horses graze around this beautiful wild-flower pasture for half the time, I think it's as much a treat for them as us!

After lunch we headed down to the beach for a few hours.  When it comes to Pinecrest, we take whatever reservation we can get, but I am realizing that end of July is the ideal time to go.  We don't freeze at night and the lake is warm enough to get in and swim for long periods of time.

After kayaking on Lake Mary at Mammoth, Dave and I were excited to rent some double kayaks again.  Alas, we were outvoted by the younger half of the family and the paddle boat it was, once again!

No complaints, though!  The day couldn't have been prettier for a peaceful paddle boat ride and that mountain scenery we always enjoy at Pinecrest was only enhanced by all the colorful sailboats out on the water.

The nice thing about the paddle boat is that the kids are pumped to help paddle it.  I enjoyed plenty of time with my legs trailing off the back!

When our hour was up and it was time to get the boat back to the dock, the girls were oh-so-helpful kicking off the back, allowing us to get some "real speed"!

The last notable thing we did during this year's camping trip was pay a visit to the geocache we hid last summer.  We have gotten SO much pleasure out of this!  Each time a family finds it and takes the time to register their finding on the geocache website, we get an email.  And we've gotten tons of emails!  People have left nice comments like, "This was my young son's first geocache and he found it all by himself!" or "Thank you for leading us to the beautiful meadow, we would have never hiked this way otherwise!"  Not everyone registers, so along with the emails we've been getting all year, it was super fun to read the pages and pages of names and dates from all over our state that people signed and left inside the small container-- many of them kids and some including artwork.  This is exactly what we had in mind when we put this geocache into play last summer: it being easy enough for kids to find and scenic enough to give families a small hiking activity to participate in together.

Sure the sleep is not perfect, so the sibling squabbles are inevitable.  And sure, living in that dirt starts driving me crazy around Day 3.  But, our camping trips have always been a real high point of summer and, especially as the kids get older, these trips do seem to just keep getting better and better!