Camping at Humbug Mt State Park

I'll have to apologize for the lack of pictures.  They are currently on the desktop in Lightroom, but have not made it past that yet.  I promise to get some over here.  C got some great shots, as usual.

We started our camping trip Monday and came home Friday.  Originally, C suggested a full week.  I looked at him with an odd enough look he adjusted the time frame to 5 days.  It may have been one day too long, but over all we had a great time.

The campground was a 5 hour trip from home and the kids did remarkably well.  It gives me hope for the upcoming 7+ hour trip to Idaho on Saturday. (Yikes!)  Loading the car was a bit of an adventure.  Just packing enough gear and food for 6 people, 2 of whom are in diapers, takes some finesse.  In hindsight, packing extra underwear for 2 of the children may have been overkill.
Unpacking of course is easier.  It involves Dad standing at the van and throwing stuff at laughing kids bobbing around.  The older boys pitched their own tent with a salting of fighting and insulting.  But they got it done and were pretty proud of themselves.  They also helped me pitch the big tent while C took E to the beach.  Note:  Pitching a tent near a 2 year old is ill-advised.
Then, we set up the kitchen.  That would be super important to our family.  I spent about a week prepping menues and pre-preparing food.  The whole food thing went a lot better than I thought it would.  We had enough, it all turned out pretty well and the kids ate it.  For the most part.  Predicting what G will eat requires more prophesying skills than I have.

The first day was beach day.  C had purchased a cabana-like thing for us to use which turned out to be perfect.  It provided some shade and wind protection and a spot to stash our gear.  It also gave the baby a safe  place to play.  Or rather, eat sand from.  Funny girl.  She screamed if I took her next to the ocean.  She screamed if I sat her in the sand.  But she happily shoved fistfuls of the stuff in her  mouth.  The boys of course had a blast playing in the surf, digging in the sand and running all over.  There was a stream to play in too.  That provided the most entertainment really.  It gave E a chance to stay in the water without worrying where the next big wave was coming from.  They floated driftwood, threw rocks and built dams.  Physics courses at their finest!

Day 2 was fishing day. Arizona beach has a kid's fishing pond that is quite nice.  The pond is fairly large and well stocked.  There is a huge amount of grass to run around in and several picnic tables to lay out snacks and fishing gear.  The boys became pretty adept casters.  G caught 2 fish and M caught 1.  That is causing some education in humility.

Day 3 was high adventure.  That was the day we set out to climb Humbug Mt.  It is 1756' high.  The trail is only 3 miles long.  I'll pause a second while you do the math there....


Okay.  So C and I decided that he would take the older 2 up and I would hang with the littles at their pace.  There was a stream about 3/4 mile up the trail and I figured we could play and snack there long enough to wait for the guys to come back and help me down the Mt.  Yeah, right.
E, climber that he is, settled on climbing a mountain as the ultimate task for his 2 year old self.  He told me everyday, "I want climb Humbug Mountain."  All the way up to the stream he refused to be left behind.  Finally, C was able to take G and M and head up to the summit.  But E would not stop.  But he was slowing waaaaayyyy doooowwwnnnn.  3 steps and a pause.  2 steps and apause.  Evertime he paused, I would ask him if he wanted to stop, to turn back, to go back to the campground.  I finally bribed him to play in the stream with our freeze dried ice cream.  But in getting back to the stream, I lost the radio I was using to assure C we were okay.
When E started screaming over eating a cookie, I looked in his mouth.  Turns out the injury to his tongue he sustained last week at he playground was much greater than I thought.  It was swollen, and multi-colored.  And gross.  And miserable looking.  No wonder he was having such a hard time!
So there I am.  2 kids, no radio and no help.  Fortunately I felt compelled to take M in the wrap rather than the mei tai.  So I situated everthing in E's backpack, tied him on my back, criss-crossed M on my front, carried the back pack and headed down the mountain.  I was apparently quite a sight!  But I made it back to camp.  E slep almost the whole way.
The next day, we broke camp and made it safely and uneventfully home.  With an ibuprofened kid.
Dr says he has an infection (duh) and is now on antibiotics which I hope work completely.
But I do want to point out, much to everyone surprise, that E did not sustain injury on the camping trip!  Hooray!!
Now I just need to get everything put away in such a way that it is not too hard to get it out next time.