Vickery Summer Camping Trip 2013

Hi everyone! Now that you've recovered from the exciting news in our last blog post, let's talk about our recent camping trip! We go on an annual long weekend camping trip with our friends Joey & Sam (and their kids, Cecelia & Mallory), who live just outside of Olympia, WA, and our friends Tracy & Dan, who live in Portland, OR.
 
We usually try to pick a spot that's sort of halfway, but that's not exactly easy - there's not much around the halfway point between Boise & Portland/Olympia! This year, we tried a campground at the base of Mt. Rainier - La Wis Wis Campground. Since it was a 7 hour drive for us, we decided to split the trip into two days. We left Boise on Thursday night, stopped in Hermiston, OR (the apparent watermelon capital of the universe..or maybe just the Northwest). We made the rest of the drive to the campground on Friday morning/early afternoon, arriving around 2pm.

The campground was absolutely gorgeous - lots of tall pine trees & plenty of underbrush, moss-covered logs & fun areas around our sites for the kids to explore. We had a small site & a much bigger site, so we left the bigger site to the rest of the crew & set up in the small site (which was a good thing when night time rolled around..that's some foreshadowing, people!). Our site had a beautiful little creek running behind it!

We spent most of the weekend hanging out, going for walks, checking out the area & reconnecting with our friends, since we hadn't seen them for a year. Claire had a great time playing with Cecelia (who's 4) and Mallory (who's 17 months). Cecelia brought her bike (with training wheels), and Claire was OBSESSED with it. She loved honking the horn, and figured out pretty quickly how to climb onto the bike (over the back wheel & onto the seat!)..and then wanted us to push her around everywhere! We're already looking for the perfect tricycle for her birthday, of course!

Claire (and Mom & Dad!) had a tough night the first night - she went to bed just fine, but woke up a few hours later very upset, and didn't fall back asleep until 4 am. It was rough, to say the least. Luckily she was in a great mood all day after that, took a nap & then had a fantastic night's sleep the next night (exhaustion will do that to you!). Because of that first night's mayhem & screaming/crying, I was very glad we chose the small site, across the street from our friends & not near any other sites!

On Sunday morning, we all packed up & headed out to check out the park at the immediate base of Mt Rainier. Claire slept on the 30 minute drive there, and we enjoyed the gorgeous scenery...Mt Rainier is absolutely stunning! The Visitor Center area was packed with people - lots of hikers starting their climbs, and lots of tourists checking out the sights. We spent some time checking out the area, but unfortunately had to head out, since we had a 7 hour drive to make, and knew that we'd be losing an hour with the time difference.

We drove to Richland, WA and stopped at a park so that Claire could run around and burn off some energy before we made the rest of the drive. There was a pretty cool riverboat docked at the park, complete with a big paddlewheel! We had dinner at the Atomic Ale Brew Pub. Claire had a shrimp & cheese quesadilla (and insisted on dipping it in the salsa they provided, since any kind of dip is her favorite food). We split a thin crust pizza - half Bangkok Chicken (peanut sauce, bean sprouts, chicken, green onions, mozzarella, cilantro, shredded carrots & peanuts!) and half Ham & Pineapple. Zach also got to try a couple of their beers, which he enjoyed!

We made the rest of the uneventful trip home, and Claire slept most of the way. We were happy to get home at 1am!

It was a wonderful camping trip, in an awesomely beautiful location! We both agreed that we'd love to go back there in the future.

Here are some pictures & video of the trip...enjoy!
Camping 2013 Pictures!
Claire on Cecilia's Bike Video