The end of the W & J Camping season for 007!!

The Blair Snowman Project!

To close out our season of camping with the W's we headed back out to Beaver Flat's for the last weekend in August. You can certainly tell that summer is coming to an end, it was substantially cooler, the river lower and much more green than blue, a lack of both mosquitoes :) & Dragon Flies :( and an infestation of aphids! ewwwwwwww! Poor BeaverW's marshmallows and hot chocolate looked like they were covered in chocolate shavings.......

As always the kids could not wait to get down to the river to throw rocks as soon as an adult was available to take them. Pleasantly despite having campsites much farther into the "walk in" area we were all set up quite quickly. MommyW and I assume this is because we set up the tents and such while the Daddies "schlepped" things from the cars.

It should be noted that it is rather a miracle that none of the three kids were hit in the head with an "astray" aka sideways flying rock from one of the other two!

In an intensely "interesting/head shaking/ bizarre" turn of events while sitting around on the almost .75km long stretch of rocky river front we were "joined" by a group of three families. Each family had several children, dogs and arguing spouses. Impressively despite all of the space on the river front they set up less than 30cm, yes centimetres away from us. It was one of those moments where you want to start looking for the candid camera because it was so bizarre! After several attempts to drown one of the dogs, nearly loosing small children down the river, and rocks being launched at our crew they departed for their tents!

The funniest part was as all of the adults were absolutely silent for a full minute after the group departed. Each one of use was trying to decide how to phrase the bizarreness of the whole encounter. There was a lot of arm waving at the other .7km of space around us and stuttering to find the words to explain the oddness of it all.

The Windblown Sleep Deprived from the "Vegas Adventure" MommyW

MommyW and DaddyJ offering support to DaddyW while he grilled the evenings supper of hamburgers! Given how much smoke we produced I am very thankful we did not BBQ them in the sites as I am sure every bear in Kananaskis country would have mistaken us for sausages in our sleeping bags!

Somehow there is always a lot of finger pointing whenever a "rude" noise escapes one of the boys! Given the laughter of DaddyW I do believe that he was the actual culprit!

Saturday

The morning began in a warm sunny late sleeping fashion for most of us. I do seem to recall that the the Daddies experienced a "great chill" early in the morning and managed to "warm things up" fairly quickly after that! LOL

After a breakfast of "Breakfast burritos"~ crumbled sausage & bacon, potatoes & peppers, scrambled eggs, salsa, sour cream and tortillas we were off and running to the river for some fun. Well some of us were off to the river while the forgetful MommyJ made a run into town for medication, toothbrushes & contact lens gear with the help of MommyW. We even managed to expand the JFamily's camping supplies with roasting sticks in Bragg Creek along the way.

Why did the man & three children cross the river?

To see what was on the other side of course! (I'm not sure DaddyJ's legs have recovered yet!)
The Daddies trying to warm things up as the temperature dropped, the wind picked up, and the rain clouds came with force!
The famous DaddyJ cranky look!

MommyJ knitting MommyW a hat to keep her warm! I am pleased to report that the hat was complete in time for sleeping in the pouring rain later that evening.

Saturday later afternoon's great cooling off.....

Beaver Buddies showing off their stones!

Hanging of the Tarps to protect us from the rain!

The Fine Beaver Leaders show us their "Can Do" attitude

The little Beavers make use of the tarp & fire wood to construct toy car race courses

Shortly after dinner the rain started to pour down with an impressive force. Thankfully our tummies were full of Chicken/Steak/Hot Dogs, baked potatoes, noodles, smores, hot chocolate & coffee. This would tide us all over until we were packed up in the pouring rain on Sunday and back into the city. It was not until Tuesday that the rain stopped long enough for either family to pop up the tents to air, tarps to dry or shoes to stop making that lovely squishing sound.

Despite some of the more interesting things that happened on this camping trip I think that we all had a great time. I can not wait to do it again next year!

Hugs and Best wishes for great adventures,

MommyJ