He had packed up his stuff with Nana and Stacy the Thursday before and marveled at all the stuff we were taking with us on Friday.
The morning of the trip he was running around wondering when we were leaving and excitedly getting dressed. We managed to get everything together, have breakfast and get on the road by noon. We drove down 280 and enjoyed the scenic drive through La Honda and onto Pescadero road. The weather was sunny and Jack kept remarking on how it wasn't raining yet.
We finally got to the camping site and made our way to the "owls" section which went to bed later and woke up later in theory.
We found a spot & started trying to figure out how to set up the tents. Ericka tackled the challenge of Jack's cowboy tent with success and I did what I could to remember how to put up our tent and get the air mattress inflated.
Jack started running around excitedly and suddenly Amos was over in our area and the two of them started hatching their plan to elaborately flood our tent with pumped water. Jack had been talking about flooding our tent all week and had recruited various friends of his at Glenridge to participate.
The boys started running around and soon found other friends with light sabers and much whooping and hollering commenced. Ericka volunteered to take 4 of the kids down to the river and off they went. I went down to the larger camp area and brought down our stuff for dinner and whatnot. Then I went on down to the river.
Wow what a neat scene. Ericka and the boys had made their ways to a bank across the river that had a small eddy/pond area. The boys were all running around naked and it was just beautiful out with the sun shining. I made my way down to the river with Amos' mom and a couple other kids and we all rolled up our trousers and forded the river. It was really cold.
Jack met me and was scrambling over the rock walls and jumping in the water and finding rocks to bring to me to save and man, finally there were loads and loads of the Glenridge kids and parents all plowing down to the river and wow was there a ton of people cavorting down there.
Finally the sun went over the ridge and it got pretty cold and it was time to huff it back up the hill. Ericka helped Jack get back in his clothes and we made it up to the campground where basically the next 4 hours were spent with Jack tearing around the entire campsite with a differing crew of kids. Ericka and I hung out and watched the pig get cooked and all the food get prepped. Soon enough it was dinner time. I grabbed Jack a plate of fixings and got him seated with Amos and Liam and he ended up eating pretty well. Then, back to running around. Once it got pretty dusk-like I started shadowing them a bit.
One game they were playing involved climbing down a long hollow tree with the lantern. Frankly I was pretty surprised at how game Jack was for going down this rather scary thing. But he had no problem. Overall this trip was great for physical challenges for him, he really pushed himself to climb trees and explore and take risks.
The boys LOVED his tent. He and Liam and Amos spent loads of time sitting inside of it hiding from everyone and talking and they all wanted to sleep together in the tent.
Once it was really dark Jack took Amos to his tent and Jack got in his sleeping bed and announced he was going to sleep. Brandon was there with me and he got Amos off to his own tent. I asked Jack if he really wanted to sleep in his tent and he said no, so we got him into Ericka and my tent and I read a couple of chapters of Hardy Boys and he fell asleep.
Ericka and I stayed up for another hour or so and then headed to bed. I'm not gonna lie, three of us on the air mattress isn't fun. Gotta figure out a different solution for happy camping in the future. And of course in the middle of the night my back had had it so I got up and went to sleep in the car. I awoke to Jack tapping on the window to wake me up in the morning.
It was still early and the Owl camp hadn't quite awoken, so I got Jack in the back of the car and we talked and joked around for an hour or so. Then we got out and he ate 3 bowls of cereal and I started figuring out how to make coffee.
After a bit Ericka got up and Jack went off to run around with the boys again. E and I broke down camp & that took a bit. Around 9:30 Jack came running back crying. We sat down and he told me he had gotten hit in the head with a stick by Aribella and it really hurt. He was very upset and went and got himself strapped in the car and wanted to go home immediately.
We talked a bit and he settled down. The boys had been playing with sticks and light sabers all day and they had been chasing the Zoey, Aribella crew as well. Anyways, I'll check in on Jack & Aribella later this week at Glenridge to see how they're doing together. She's actually one of the girls that he likes to play with.
The next day when Maria asked him how he liked camping, he excitedly said he really liked it. But at the time, he was through.
E and I finished packing the car and we drove around saying goodbye to everyone. Liam's parents in particular are just awesome people and I think we all enjoyed hanging out with them. They'll be great to have at New Traditions and they're already lining up a camping trip at the same place for NT for next year!
We drove home, tired and dirty but happy!
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