Memorial Week-End

It has been a few weeks since Memorial Week-End...HOWEVER I am finally here and wanted to share a bit of what we did. First Royce took Friday off (that NEVER happens) well it does about 1 or 2 times a year..anyhow we had a great morning and finished up packing the utility trailer with all the camping stuff and the 4 coolers we decided to bring..not sure WHY we thought we needed 4 coolers full but oh well...All the kids got out of school early on Friday and each was home by 1p.m. we then ran around town and did our last bit of shopping and FINALLY got on the road 3 hours later. (we were suppose to leave no later than 2) we traveled East on 299 which is sooo pretty and somewhere in there we thought..oh the rain will stop it's Memorial Week-End! (It had started to rain around 2), LOL and we are going east away from the coast..you get the idea...we traveled to a place called Whiskeytown to camp at a place called Oak Bottom, the lake is beautiful! The camp sites are okay for tailgate campsites...and it rained thru the night and rained all through Saturday..we decided to take a break from the rain and traveled on into Redding for a little bit. By the time we got back the rain finally stopped and we were able to eat dinner with just barely a mist. Sunday came and THE RAIN STOPPED for good. We got everyone fed and packed up for our hike up to the waterfall...there are a few to choose from. We chose to hike to "Whiskeytown water fall" it is just shy of two miles up and you climb over 1,000 feet in elevation in that short little hike..the waterfall was fantastic 225 feet of massive waterfall burling down that canyon. Anyhow the hike back was a breeze and even Malia made it up and back all on her own! All the kids really enjoyed it and so did Royce and I. We got back to camp, the kids swam in the lake and Royce and I made steak dinner with various dishes to go along with the yummy steak. The kids got back from swimming and while we still worked on dinner the 4 oldest had a little fore building competiton, not one of them made a fire so the following morning Royce guided (by words only) Janelle (she is 7) and she built our morning fire for Monday!! She only used three matches too! we packed up..ate breakfast first and they kept eating..after all we came with 4 coolers of food and drinks! we traveled back west to Willow Creek, stoppped played in the park and had "pick-nik" dinner before we drove the rest of the way home. We didn't arrive back home until about 7. I went the next day to pick up Bo Bo our cocketial from my friends and good grief was she happy to see me and to come home. The dogs enjoyed camping too...although I don't think it was Gaston's favorite one. The week-end was fun and I would post pictures BUT we have not yet up graded to a digital camera and there was no film in the camera's case..it was nice and a place we will camp at again soon, next time we know it will be atleast 100 degree's so a lot different from this time. In the meantime we plan to stick a tad closer to home and just camp on the coast...it's cooler but we just love these Redwoods!