Camping Trip Recaps: 6/23-6/28
Camping Trip Day 1: 6/23
We met the rest of our group at the Lexington Hotel. Our guides to start were Blake and Katie. Our group consisted of six other people: a family of four (Iris, Julian, Kate, and Geoffrey) from Ann Arbor and a father and daughter (Neil and Hannah). Iris was my age and Julian was two years younger than Jackson. Hannah was 25. Our agenda the first day was the Yellowstone thermopools. They were really cool. The van rides between them were long, but didn’t seem like it because Hannah knew lots of riddles and games, like the Hat, Wombat, Moon, and Elephant Games. You guys should prepare to be mystified when I get back. We saw Old Faithful as well; it was a little underwhelming, but still pretty cool. We got the hardest riddle of the week after Old Faithful: “Stick falls. Woman dies. How?”. It took us so long to figure out that we talked about it all through our next stop at Grand Prismatic Pools. The pools were cool and supposed to be really colorful, but it was a cool day, so they were very steamy and we weren’t able to see much under the steam. The first two nights we would be staying in hotels outside Yellowstone, so right before we got to our hotel, Julian asked us “What comes up and goes down at the same time?”. We were planning to go to the pool later, so our deal was that if we figured it out, we got to throw Julian in, but if we didn’t, he could push us all in. Let’s just say that we all got shoved hard. After we unpacked, we went down to the lobby to play cards. We played Sevens, Hearts, and Dirty Hearts. We also ended up playing hearts during dinner. We sang camp songs on the way home; Hannah is like a camp counselor (she actually is) and it was so fun having her on the trip. At the pool, after Julian shoved us all in, we played Marco Polo and went to bed. After the first day, I knew that Iris was nice and fun to talk with, Julian was very entertaining and fun to hang out with, Hannah made the trip so much better with her riddles, games, and songs and she knew a lot of random things like the geology of the springs or species of birds we saw, and Jackson was the same old Jackson. Blake was funny (he hit Jackson with a snowball) and Katie was really nice. The parents all got along pretty well.
Camping Trip Day 2: 6/24
We had breakfast at the hotel and met everyone else on the van. Our entertainment in the van that day consisted of Ghost and Contact, more games from Hannah and her dad, Neil. We also played, wait for it, Mafia. We stopped at the Norris Geyser Basin first, which was cool, and then went to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, specifically the Lower Falls, the tallest water fall in the United States (around 308 feet). It was really awe-inspiring, looking down over the side. The walk down was scary: steep and thin paths, with a long drop off the side. Next was Steamboat, the tallest geyser in the world. It’s very unfaithful and inconsistent; it went off eight times in a week once, but also stayed dormant for almost a decade at one point. Unsurprisingly, we didn’t see it go off. We yelled at it, called it names, and pretended to walk away trying to ‘make’ it go. We stopped at one more place, where Dragon’s Mouth was. It really sounded and looked like there was a dragon in the cave. You could film a movie there; it was that realistic. Our hotel was made up of cabins. We played Hearts in Julian and Iris’ cabin before dinner, and at dinner. We played a huge game of Dirty Hearts in their cabin again after dinner (eight people) and it was so fun!!!
Camping Trip Day 3: 6/25
Breakfast was in the hotel and then we loaded back into the van. We headed to the boat ramp, where we would launch our kayaks onto Jackson Lake in Grand Tetons National Park. Our luggage went on the j-rig (boat that went with us everywhere on the lake) and anything we might need on the kayak went in a dry bag with us. I was in a double kayak with Mom; I missed being able to have a single by one year (you have to be 14). I wanted to be in the back so I could steer, but the lighter person had to be in the front. A new guide, Miles, joined us for the camping portion of our trip. We kayaked two miles to start and stopped for lunch on an island of a name I don’t remember. We went about five more miles to our camping site on Grassy Island. After setting up our tent and sleeping situation, we played a hand of Dirty Hearts, but then Jackson got bored of “doing nothing but cards, riddles, and songs”. Julian invented a new game that became a new pastime for the next two days; it eventually became known as Tree Huggers. We would pick a target on the island and you had to go there stepping on nothing but rocks, fallen trees, and sticks. I had forgotten how awesome it was having a kid around who wasn’t worried about acting all grown-up. Maybe Tree Huggers was a silly, childish game, but we didn’t care because it was super fun. Thank you to Julian for reminding me that it’s okay to be a kid more than every once in a while. The camp set-up was very efficient; the kitchen, the bathroom, the hand-washing station, all of it was put together so fast. Props to Blake, Katie, and Miles for that. Dinner was delicious, chicken marsala, and dessert was awesome too, strawberry shortcake. We sang songs around the campfire in the dark, exactly how you would imagine a camping night to end.
Camping Trip Day 4: 6/26
Breakfast was at 9:30, giving us plenty of time to play TH. We packed bags for kayaking and hiking to Lee Lake, an alpine lake. We were given a chance to swim in 50° water. Julian, Hannah, Iris, and I all took it. We were going to hike up to Trapper’s Lake (35°), where we could do a Polar Plunge, but some people were too tired to hike more. We hiked back to our kayaks and kayaked back to Grassy Island. We played Tree Huggers before dinner. After dinner, we played Dirty Hearts and sat around the fire until it got really dark.
Camping Trip Day 5: 6/27
We had to pack up our tent and sleeping gear that morning, and it was really frustrating. We packed up all of our stuff and then kayaked across the bay. We did a hike up to an amazing view and then Blake decided to take us ‘bush-whacking’ up to a better view over the trees. It was awesome. That was where Hannah talked about her rock-climbing and backpacking experiences. Thank you to Hannah and Katie for inspiring me to want to do more things like this: camping, rock climbing, whitewater rafting, backpacking, all of it sounds amazing now. We kayaked about two miles to a place where we ate lunch and Hannah taught Iris and I some camp songs. The wind really picked up then and we actually saw some whitecaps out on the lake. I was scared that we would have to get on the j-rig to our last camping place, but Blake said it would be okay. It was so fun kayaking over the waves. We got splashed and wet, but it was perfect weather for it, hot enough that the splashes felt good. Our last camping spot was Spalding Bay. The mosquitoes were everywhere. I liked Grassy much better than Spalding, but it was still awesome because it was camping. After dinner, Miles and Hannah played Black and White Magic and I finally figured it out after two days. We went to bed after watching the stars when it got dark.
Camping Trip Day 6 & Miles 2412-2454: Drive to Driggs, Idaho
We woke up in the morning and went to eat breakfast. We were supposed to make ourselves a sandwich for lunch on the river as well, but I forgot. We had to pack up our tents and sleeping gear again. We kayaked back to the boat ramp where we had gone out on the lake and had to say good-bye to Miles. It was the first of a series of really sad good-byes. Spending most of your time for even three days with a group of people make really strong friendships really fast. We drove in a different van to the entry point on the Snake River. Blake and Katie split us up into groups for the two rafts. The four of us were on Katie’s raft with Iris and the other five were on Blake’s raft. We also had a new guide named Carlos on our raft, ‘supervising’ Katie. The rules of the park required that to go down the river alone rowing the raft, you had to have done it ten times with ‘supervision’. Congratulations to Katie for doing her tenth lap!! The river was pretty flat, no rapids, but it was a lot more fun than I expected it to be. We played Black Magic and I’m Going on a Picnic and finally just talked. I ate a bunch of snacks instead of lunch. When we pulled off the river after about two-and-a-half hours, we loaded back onto the van to go back to the Lexington. It took us forever to switch our stuff from the OARS bags to our bags. Then it was time to say good-bye. It was really sad knowing that we might never see our newish friends again. We began driving to Driggs. The shower at the hotel felt so good. We went to a pizzeria in Driggs that was really good and then Jackson and I watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets at the hotel room (it just happened to be on) while Mom and Dad did our dirty camp laundry at a Laundromat. We then went to bed. I know that in these posts, I haven’t done any justice to the beauty of either of the national parks or to any of my new friends. Julian, the mosquito assassin, Iris, the reader, Hannah, the riddler, Blake, the joker, Katie, the encourager, and Miles, the helper. There are so many stories I could tell and I’m going to miss all of you guys so much!! Thanks for the great memories. I would definitely recommend an OARS trip to all those adventurous families. Especially to the Reynolds, you guys would love doing something like this.
“It’s the friends we meet along the way that help us appreciate the journey.”