This past week we headed for the mountains for a Nelson Family campout. It's always an adventure when you take the crew camping. We had fun setting up camp, collecting firewood and doing the traditional s'mores. Kurt finally fell asleep, so we got him situated in the tent and had a little party with clark complete with stories of Big Foot and popcorn. In hindsight, the popcorn probably wasn't the best idea. Ya know how when you microwave popcorn and burn it the smell lingers for quite some time? Well as we sat eating our burnt popcorn, Rob and I kept hearing loud trudging in the woods and Rob assured me that they were just deer. Before going on the campout we were both warned about black bears, etc. I was a little freaked, but Rob put my mind to ease. Little did I know, that day at work, Rob had also been told that black bears are aggressive and was told some pretty freaky stories. We got clark all snug in his bed complete with 10 hand warmers and we were finally all tucked in and feeling warm and ready for what I thought was a surprisingly promising sleep for a campout. I always dread the cold and long nights when camping, but so far so good at Sardine Lake. Are food was tucked in to the bear box, which by the way was a little scary to think that bear boxes were necessary, and all was quiet. Suddenly we heard huge tree trunks falling and loud trudging. Rob asked, "hey mel, are you scared?" I thought he was getting ready to comfort me when he said, "Im a little freaked out. I don't have my gun!" I was seeing our family's campout being played out in "I shouldn't be Alive" in my head. We smelled up the whole camp ground with our burnt popcorn and probably called in the bears for a party. To make a long story short, we quickly moved everyone to the car and put down the seats. I was in back with two sprawled out little boys and Rob was crammed into the front seat. It was a long night at Sardine lake...the name is a little ironic seeing how we were crammed in the car like sardines. We survived. In the morning, we had breakfast burritos and went fishing. It was really pretty and clark learned to cast his line on his own. Always an adventure.
