Alder Lake Camping Trip

We went camping at Alder Lake for the week with Greg's family. Between good company and games, playing in the water and on the boat, and good meals, we stayed busy and had a really nice time. I'm so happy to have married into a great family. I enjoy spending time with them as much as my own family. It was especially nice to spend some quality time with Greg--uninterrupted by business calls or doorbells. =)

(That's our tent. We camped on the same site with Greg's cousins in their tent trailer.)

(That's Greg's parent's RV. They camped across the little road from us, and the rest of the family was on their site.)


(This is where David slept. He said it was very warm and comfortable, and he stayed perfectly dry through the day and night that it rained.)


Greg got a lot of good "brother" time with his family, and I spent a lot of time with Greg's girl cousins. They are a family of three girls (just like mine). I felt like they helped fulfill my need for girl/sister time that week.



One of the fun things we did was go on the boat and ride on the inner tubes. That was a lot of fun! It was entertaining to watch the girls because they held on and got bounced around and flipped a lot!


On a side note, we kept laughing about our meals through out the week because--just by coincidence--we planned the same meals (or very similar) all week that Greg's cousin's family planned! Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches on Monday, Hot dogs and chili on Tuesday, Foil dinners on Wednesday, and Mexican on Thursday.



On Monday night, just as we were finishing dinner, a friendly guy on a bike came to our campsite and started asking us questions about the little store that went out of business and how to get a camp site. He was a "serious" biker (bicycle--not motorcycle) and he was riding from Seattle to somewhere in Montana I think. He was on Day 2 and planned to be riding for almost a month! He was counting on the little store right outside the camp ground to provide food for his dinner and breakfast, but he didn't know that it had gone out of business a couple years ago. We invited him to share our dinner and I gave him an apple to take with him the next day. We also let him use the extra campsite Greg's parents had paid for (and we didn't need). He sat with us around our campfire that night while we made s'mores and talked. It was fun to hear about his plans and imagine myself going for a big ride like that some day. (Sorry, I didn't get a picture. I thought about it but felt funny asking him to get his picture.)


There's a swim beach on the lake that also has a field and toys for kids to play on.

I was playing with Ellie when I noticed Greg apparently sitting on the water.



I started laughing when I realized he was trying to paddle around on a log. He always cracks me up.


He also decided to ride his bike into the water to help wash off the bugs. Then he had sand in the brakes and his bike made some funny noises after that.

The beginning of the week was warm and sunny. When I went inner tubing with the girls we were able to enjoy a fair amount of sun with clouds scattered through the sky...but on Thursday we woke up to the sound of rain. It rained almost the whole day and night. I kept hoping it would blow over or clear up, but it just kept coming. I didn't mind too much except for the rain that soaked through our tent. I moved everything out of the tent and put our bed (air mattress) directly in the middle of the tent so it wouldn't get wet. In the afternoon, Greg's parents treated the family to a ride into town and some excellent ice cream! It was nice to go do something together with the family, and I will never turn down an offer for ice cream!
(Greg's cousin Johnny)



After dinner I heard some talk about people going down for a boat ride and to swim. I wasn't planning to go because I thought it was just a boy thing, but then Chris started asking if I was coming too. I thought it was a crazy idea, but since I was freezing cold anyway I figured I mind as well have fun too. It was just getting dark when Greg and I got down to the dock, and the rest of the "big kids" were already out on the boat skiing or knee boarding. They came back to pick us up, and then we went out to the middle of the lake and jumped in the water. Well, the boys jumped in and the girls "got ready" for a long time. I really really didn't want to get in...but once I did it wasn't so bad. I floated around on one of the inner tubes for awhile and then floated around in my life jacket after that. It was overcast and raining, so we didn't get a lot of moon or star-light. We could see by the lights from the boat. The boys tied two inner tubes together and started playing King of the inner tube. It was fun to watch them fight and knock each other off. David's girlfriend was brave and joined the game, but I was happy just floating in my life jacket. When everybody was sufficiently cold, Chris, Greg and I all got on inner tubes and let the boat pull us back to the dock. The boys all stayed to tie up the boat and put the cover on while the other two girls and I ran back to camp for hot showers! It was cold, but we had fun that night.



This is the trail Mom walked on with me last time. The level of the water was so high this year that the trail was all flooded! It was odd to think that we walked along it and there was space from the edge of the trail to the water last time.






You can get a feel for how high the water was in this picture too. Usually that ramp down to the water actually goes down. It was perfectly flat this time.



On the last day we packed up camp and got ready to go. Everybody else headed home, but Greg and his brothers stayed so they could take the boat up the river that feeds the lake and leave it there while they hiked around and "survived." As Chris was about to get on the boat, his truck keys fell out of his pocked and into the water near the dock. It was a tragedy really. David volunteered to drive partway home and meet their dad--who was driving towards us with another set of keys. While David set off, Chris and Greg decided it was worth a try to see if the park maintenance guys might have a really big magnet. It turns out they did! Apparently the loss of keys in the lake is fairly common. So we headed back to the dock with our magnet, doubtful but hopeful. The boys tied the magnet to a ski rope and put it in the water near the edge of the dock where Chris had been standing. It was a long way down (about 35 feet) so we sat in silence as they fed the rope down. The magnet hit the bottom. Chris moved it around a little and then carefully began pulling the rope up again. He had to be very careful, just in case by a miracle the keys were stuck to the magnet--he didn't want to lose them again. Then the moment came. We could see the yellow magnet nearing the surface of the water! Chris pulled it out and Greg looked under it crying, "You've got to be kidding me!" There were the keys, dangling from the bottom of the magnet.
Chris called his Dad and David and told them about the recovery of his keys. Then we went out on the boat to play while we waited for David's return. The story was so good that we decided to re-enact it to get pictures when David came back.

Christopher treated us to pizza after because it was getting close to dinner time, but I felt like we were celebrating the miracle of finding his keys.