Washington Campground with the Blackburns

Our campout with the Blackburns was a little rough.  And I'm not talking about the fact that our campground didn't have drinking water.  We of course got off to a late start- not getting up there until about two hours later than planned.  The Blackburns had been so worried about getting a walk-up site, they took the first one they found which didn't have an available one next to it until the next day.  So we unpacked the bare minimum at a site up the road- it was about 1/4 of a mile away from them.  And then moved our stuff down to the spot across the road from them the next day.  Not our favorite way to camp.  It's not as fun to not make the place home.  But it was fine.  We really handled all the hang ups pretty well.  We had a lot of fun playing cards and exploring the first day.  Then making woofums that night.  Nate, Luke, Molly and I had a lot of fun looking at the stars that night.  Even though we were freezing :).  The second day we spent the morning cooking pancakes and bacon, doing our tie dye shirts and moving our stuff down to the other site.  We had lunch and then got out on the canoes on our almost non-existent lake :).  I guess they were draining it.  Which made catching fish with your hands possible, but canoeing less enjoyable.  After canoeing we all just bummed around for a little while.  I may have even dozed off a little in my camp chair while Molly napped in the wagon (best idea ever!!) and Nate and some of the kids fished.  We noticed some smoke coming up over the mountain across the lake form us and while we were a little concerned, felt like we'd be fine.  We made our delicious salmon tin foil dinners, and then the evening took a turn for the worse.  It was about 8:00 when the ranger came and told us that while he wasn't going to tell us we had to evacuate, the fire was three miles away and would probably reach our campground within the next 6-12 hours.  We couldn't help but notice that 6-12 hours from then would mostly likely be the middle of the night.  We weren't in the mood to pack up camp and load up sleeping kids in the middle of the cold night.  So we made an executive decision to just get out of there.  The kids were totally awesome about it.  They of course have the gene that gets them all excited in emergency situations and they all go into rescue mode.  So that was fun.  All the talking and running different scenarios... they get along so well in those situations, it's amazing.  They were very bummed about not being able to fish in the morning- which was funny considering that's ALL that some of them had done the whole time we had been there.  But overall, they were very good about the whole thing.  I loved that they were playing out the conversations they would have with their primary teachers on Sunday.  Funny kids. Two hours later we were all loaded up and headed out.  It was SUCH a bummer!!  It's never fun to pack up the whole house for ONE NIGHT, but this was even worse!  And we were bummed to have to end things with the Blackburns.   The fire had totally turned too, so it didn't even look close anymore.  Not that we'd wish the fire on anyone or anything, but it would have been awesome if the guys making fun of everyone who was packing up and leaving could have been put in their place.  The fire didn't even get close I don't think.  All the stuff in the news is pretty useless, but we're pretty sure it didn't even come close.  I think they lied about the three miles.  We did find some fun camping friends though!  And hopefully Nate and Matt can get out and go fishing sometime soon.  7-28-16

These pictures do not do this smoke justice.