I remember one year we went camping on a mountain somewhere in Virginia. I'm not sure what the campground is called, but it was a really great camping trip. We went in the fall so it was extremely cold, and we had to sleep in a tent. We got the best campsite; it was right near a rushing stream.
I remember a few teenagers going down the stream in tubes. They must have been freezing in that ice cold water, not to mention we were up on a mountain in the middle of fall. We tried fishing in the stream, but there were really only little fish and about a million bugs.
The only bad thing about where our campsite was, was that the bathroom was all the way up this enormous hill, and at night when you had to go and you just wanted to stay in your nice, warm, cozy sleeping bag, you had to climb this giant hill in the cold to get there.
They had the best playground there. I remember playing on some real seesaws. At one time when we were at the playground, some teens came and were playing on the merry-go-round. We didn't hesitate to hop on, well, maybe I did for a minute because I was shy, but I ended up joining. I was glad too because they spun really fast.
I also remember on another day some other kids came to the playground. They were probably a little older than we were. I remember trying to play on the seesaw with the boy, but he was alot bigger than I was, and so I ended up staying at the top while he sat practically on the ground.
I also remember how, in the morning, it was so freezing outside that I didn't even want to get out of my sleeping bag. I had to get up, of course, so I'd hurry up and get dressed so that I could sit by the fire and warm up again. Mom was awesome in the morning; she'd get us all some hot chocolate to help warm us up.
There were always nuts on the ground from the trees above us, so I'd go collecting 'em, so that later when we lit a fire, I could throw 'em in and watch 'em pop. It was so cool. I'd make a furnace like thing with the logs so that I could toss the nuts in. After a few seconds they'd explode. After a bit, my parents said not to do it anymore, unfortunately, because sometimes it would throw out some sparks. It burned a hole in one of the chairs once.
When we were at the playground playing once, Dad accidentally squirted Mom with the hose when he was trying to rinse off some dishes. She was so angry about it because it was cold outside. After she went and changed, she sat hard on one of the chairs with a plate of food. The chair tipped back, and Dad had just enough time to save her plate of food before Mom fell to the ground.
One time, we went to this one campsite near our house. We got this awesome cabin. I remember when we lit a fire, and it started to rain. At first it was really windy. The wind started blowing the sparks everywhere. It was really wild. Mom thought we were going to burn the place down if we didn't stop it. After dumping water all over the fire, we retreated to the cabin. Just as soon as we got under the roof above the porch, rain started poring down.
At another time, we went camping in North Carolina near where our grandparents live. I can't remember what any of these campsites are called....sorry. We got a cabin there too. It was alot better than the one we got at the other place, but that's probably because we got a bigger one. They had an awesome lake called Lake Gaston.....
I remember one time we went canoing there together. Me (Courtney), Will, and Mom went in one canoe, while Dad and Jaime went in the other. We were all going under a bridge. The canoe I was on was ahead. As we went under the bridge, we were trying to steer right, but we ended up crashing into the bridge's sloping pillar-type-structure. Mom was panicking; she thought we were going to sink. Luckily we were on metal canoes, otherwise we might have sunk.
While we were at this campsite, Will got the idea to create little ships out of some bark off of the trees. We had some suckers, so when we were done eating them, we saved the wrappers for sails for our ships. They weren't bad either. We used our knives to make the fronts more ship-like. When we tested them, they sailed pretty well, at least, most of them did.
One night, we had the best dinner ever, subs. Mom made her own subs, and they were delicious. Mmmm.......I felt sorry for anyone who had to eat more hamburgers and hotdogs. Subs are so much better.
Another time, we went with our grandparents, Mom mom and Pop pop, to this campsite on another mountain in North Carolina, I think. While we were there, we kids found a vine or long branch partly connected to one of the trees. We used it to swing on. It was really fun; we would swing down over this gap, and it would then swing us back to our starting place. After a while it broke though. I had just swung really far, and as soon as I had landed it broke. Luckily it didn't break while I was swinging.
After the 'vine' broke, we had to find other things to do. We met this boy while we were there, Patrick. He was a little younger than Will. I think he was 11 or 12. We went with him to find small crawdads (or crayfish) in the little stream by our campsite. The boys got some cups to catch the crawdads in, and we girls basically alerted the boys when we spotted one. After catching about a million of the little creatures, we eventually let them go, so we could catch them all again later.
After a day or two we climbed up this giant mountain. We went up one side and down the other. Around the rocky parts near the top, there was a bit off water running down the mountain. It was mostly just little trickling slits of water, though. The view was great from the top. I carved my name on one of the trees there as best I could with my knife. When we got near the bottom on the other side, we found this river running through the place. Eventually it would all drop off into a waterfall. As soon as we reached the bottom, we were below the great waterfall and by a stream. We kids jumped around on these giant rocks and crossed to the other side. Dad took us kids up onto a ledge right next to the waterfall. It was really awesome being right next to the waterfall, being right there! Well, that's all I can think of for now......
-Courtney-
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