Tyler Family Blog: last minute camping :)

Robie and I have been talking about taking the kids on some sort of camping trip over the last weekend of July for the last few weeks. We just couldn't seem to figure out where we wanted to go, though (the Redwoods in Northern California, a 12 hour drive?; someplace local?; Yosemite or even the Sequoias?). Since it was last minute by summer camping standards we were having some trouble finding a site we liked (no shade, no thanks!). Anyway, we kept giving up the idea, then thinking again, then giving up, and finally on Thursday morning we knew we needed to decide for sure. I checked again and someone had cancelled a site close to Yosemite and at a campsite that said they had good fishing - Sold!
We have most of our camping items in a "camping bin" so we didn't have to scramble too much to get all the camping stuff together (headlamps, cooking stuff, mosquito repellent), just the food we were going to eat and some clothes. The drive was estimated at 6 1/2 hours, and knowing us we were hoping to just not lose any time off that (you know how long it takes when everyone gets out to go to the bathroom and get snacks!?) Anyway, about 5 hours in we were feeling pretty good about our progress and I was taking some funny pics of Lauren squirting easy cheese onto wheat thins.

Next thing you know, the car started getting really hot. Immediately, everyone is freaking out ("its HOT", "turn up the air", "I can't feel the air!!"). We had to stop. I yelp'ed local repair shops and saw one that was coming up in Fresno and had great ratings. They couldn't see us at all, but he recommended another number. They could look at the car in 2 or 3 hours. WHAT?! So I went for the next closest one on the map - they could see us right then and were right across the street. They were very nice, but, just our luck, they were fixing up their waiting room, so their interim waiting room was in the middle of the garage itself. At least we could watch them work and make sure they were working on our car, and they had a tv so we could watch the Olympics.

(real picture)

(just smile for the camera picture)

When they figured out what was wrong and we knew we had some time to kill, we took a walk down to the El Pollo Loco about a block away - the kids were excited to see a Goodwill on the way. Could they stop there on the way back to the car place? Of course, we could - we had plenty of time and its air conditioned, after all! 3 hours after we rolled into Fresno, we were back on the road, Slurpees in hand. The rest of the drive was uneventful and we were excited to finally make it to our campsite at around 5:30. Just enough time to set up camp and head down for some fishing.

Some of our fellow campers regaled us with stories of giant fish being stocked into the creek just that morning - sure enough, we got over to the creek and the water was actually clear enough to see the fish hanging out. It still took quite a few tries, but everyone at least got one bite.

Ashley seemed to have some sort of natural casting ability, while the rest of us started a little rough until we got the the hang of it (imagine fishing line caught in trees, almost hitting fellow family members or falling into the water 2 feet away from us). I thought the kids would be disgusted by the actual catching of the fish, instead they were fascinated and sort of freaking me out (future serial killers?) At one point, the fish had fallen off of Ashley's line, but it was on the beach, so they were chasing it down trying to keep it out of the water (this was just moments after the same thing had happened and Robie had been unsuccessfully attempting to grab the fish with his bare hands). For the rest of the time that night and then the next morning, Lauren was more focused on just catching the fish with her "bare hands" (see, that's what she's doing in this picture)

We didn't have spices or butter to put on the fish, so we just grilled them straight over the fire and went for it. It's trout, so I mean, it wasn't phenomenal, but we caught it and ate it :)
The next morning, the kids wanted to fish again, so we did some more fishing/playing in the creek, which I think was definitely their favorite part of the trip. Since we were so close to Yosemite we decided to head in and let the kids see some of the famous sites. Unfortunately, we were not the only ones with this grand idea. We were rudely awakened to reality when we couldn't even get in the front gate for 20 minutes. Then pretty much every parking area for all major sites (there are only a few in Yosemite, so I think that's part of the problem) was full and not even allowing people to try to park there. But we stopped at Tunnel View for the scenery...

Anyway, we finally found a parking spot, looked around, listened to the kids complain about a 20 minute stroll through the valley, then got back into the car to try to find a place to get into the river. We really just wanted to get away from the horrible traffic at every turn! Finally, we found a place - the water was too low to really do any tubing or anything, but the kids were fully swimming around in the ice cold water. At least they were getting all clean :) And best of all we were not stuck in traffic or surrounded by people. It was very nice and relaxing.

We realized we needed to get moving so we could stop and see the Mariposa Grand of Sequoias on our way out and then still make it home at a decent time so we dragged the kids out of the river and headed down. We did see the trees and even though the kids were grousing about the hike, they were glad we went when they saw the walk-through tree. Lauren would actually like Robie to try to do that to our pine tree in the back yard (I don't think it's going to work) We left way too late from Yosemite, considering it is 6 1/2 hour drive and it was 8:30 at night, but we made it home!