Not to be confused with our church Family Camp that we went to last month, this last weekend we went camping in Central Oregon (about three hours away or two and a half if you drive as fast as my Hubby….) over last weekend. Yes, three glorious, sleepless nights of tenting with five small children.

Actually, we borrowed a tent and this raised bed thing from George’s parents, so at least we weren’t down on the floor where the kids could spend all night stealing our blankets.

This is the first time we’ve been camping altogether with the kids since Georgie was a baby, I think, and I was a bit concerned about how it would go. George is typically not a happy camper. He’s more like a highly disgruntled camper. Dirt, not so much his thing, and he’s not huge on sleep deprivation either (although that doesn’t seem to discourage him from staying up half the night at home).

Since these are two of the main components of camping, one could see why his response to my camping queries over the last several years has been to glower at me with the heavy brow of the Neanderthal. Typically he only likes camping if it is done in a hotel.

This weekend turned out to be more like camping lite than actual camping. My Grandparents rented two cabins at the resort, and then the rest of us all camped next to the cabins (I can’t figure out how they can call an RV park with half a dozen cabins and a few tent sites a “resort.” Seems the definition of the word has slipped a wee bit. If room service and a gigantic pool overlooking some spectacular view is not included with the accommodations, then it does not qualify as a resort.)

Since the cabins were right there, we could cook breakfasts and dinners (both of which I did) and hose down the children every night. I was particularly glad about that last part. It’s astounding how utterly filthy children can get when they spend the entire day in their swimsuits roaming around the riverbank looking for bugs and other small creatures (that accounted for at least 90% of Trinity’s camping activities). One hundred degree weather doesn’t help to much either…

The day we left we went to a fish hatchery, which turned out to be vastly more entertaining than one would expect from a place with such a mundane name. Fish eggs, pop, baby fish. How exciting can that be, right?

The hatchery raises a bunch of different kinds of trout and salmon plus sturgeon for some inexplicable reason, which then get sent off to stock lakes all over the state. The fish are organized into tanks by type of fish and then age or size, so they have round tanks for teeny fish, and several rectangular ones for different sizes of bigger fish.

You can buy food pellets to feed the fish. While this sounds about as thrilling as dumping a little bit of flakes on your goldfish’s head, it actually bears a much closer resemblance to what I imaging those shark feeding tours must be like (the ones for crazy people who seem to think that sinking a block of frozen fish on a rope into the sea to attract sharks so the people can watch the sharks devour the fish is a good idea. These people may perhaps be possessing appreciably fewer brain cells than the rest of us).

Anyway, when you throw even one pellet in the water, the fish go nuts! The swarm and start jumping and thrashing about like they haven’t been fed in weeks. Makes you glad you’re on the side of the tank. My brother discovered that this frenzied behavior is different depending on the size of the fish. The smaller (8″ or so) fish of the same species (rainbow trout in this case) swarm in a spherical pattern. When you throw in a pellet, all the fish immediately flock to the area and form a big ball just below where the food was. Large fish (over two feet or so) are much slower about their response times and tend to do the fishy version of ambling over to the food.

My Dad noticed that the fish don’t like shadows, so if you stand at the edge of the tank with the sun at your back and stick out your hand so that the shadow of your arm falls in the midst of the fish, the fish will all scatter every which way. Trinity cottoned on to that immediately and spent the rest of the time frightening unassuming fishies.

The smallest fish (4″ or so) don’t like you waving your hands around even if your shadow doesn’t fall into their tank, so naturally we spent a fair amount of time standing on the side of the tank waving our arms in the hot sun and watching baby fish shoot every which way. Yes, high entertainment from the freshwater world.

Seeing most of my aunts and uncles, a few cousins, and all my grandparents plus my own immediate family for four days was quite delightful. I even taught my Dad how to play Dutch Blitz, which is that speed game I play every other Monday night with my girlfriends. He got an 86 the first time he played, which is excellent since the first person to make it to 100 wins.

I grew up playing double solitaire with him, so I knew he was fast and have been trying to schmooze him into playing Dutch Blitz with me for years. He’s going to be formidable in no time if I can con him into playing again. Hmmm, I think it’s about time to teach my older two kids how to play. Hehe. Ahhh, the virtues of early indoctrination!

Well, that pretty much wraps up my weekend. I am going to clear out my inbox real quick (ha ha), and then read some more of Harry Potter 6 in preparation for the seventh book, which comes out a week from Saturday (as I’m sure you all know). I decided to reread the entire series before the last one comes out, so I’ve been intermittently working on them since the spring.

I took the oder three kids to see the fifth movie this morning, but I think I’m going to wait until I see Transformers to do a write-up because then I can do a comparative review (that’s code for “I’m too lazy to do the review now, so I will make up a plausible-sounding excuse for delaying it” in case you were wondering…).

Last weekend’s camping trip marks the last of our big summer recreationing, so I’m hoping the rest of the holidays will be a bit more relaxed. It seems like I’ve been packing, unpacking, or vacationing for the last six weeks. It’s been delightful but mildly grueling, and I’m looking forward to a more more low key remainder of the summer.

Rachel

Written by Rachel Shubin ~ Fiendish friend for effusive fun!