Fall Break Camping Trip

Since there isn't much good weather for camping in Oklahoma, we haven't done much of it this year. You're usually okay if you camp in April, May, September, and October. It's just too humid or cold the rest of the time. The schools have Fall Break in mid October, and my friend Janine and I thought it would be a great time to get together for a trip.

They had recently gone to Red Rock Canyon State Park and enjoyed it, so we tried it again. This picture is of us about 75 feet above the road and camping area. It was a fairly steep climb on slippery red sandy rocks to get up.

The way we decided to get down, was by climbing along a rock wall with a few hand and foot holds. It was only about 10 feet down, but it would hurt to jump, so we had to scale the wall over to a narrow ramp to walk down. Rocky went first and then stood below to catch people in case they fell. Riley was the next one to go. No one fell except for Oreo, the dog. I was trying to get him to go to Riley who was standing on the ground and could almost reach him. Instead of sliding a few inches to Riley's hand, he decided to make a flying leap to the ground. He hit pretty hard, but because he's under 10 pounds, he was okay. Silly dog!

This is how Julia got down and it's kind of similar to how I was trying to help Oreo get down. Thank goodness she didn't try to jump.

Here's Jared, the monkey. He had no problem scaling the wall and promptly climbed pretty high up a tree. He's my child with very little fear.

Here I am scaling the wall. It was easy except when I had to change my foot placement or try to fit both feet in one hold. It wasn't bad at all.

We cooked using dutch ovens a lot and the food was delicious! Janine found all of the recipes and none of us had ever tried them before. We made stew, cornbread, and french toast. They all were perfectly cooked and tasted great! We even talked about entering a dutch oven cooking contest next year.

The boys went fishing, but no fish were caught. Only this frog was snagged. I don't even think it was alive. It was a huge frog though. It looks really yucky to me!

Here is Nicole helping Julia. It's nice to have the older ones around to help with the little ones. Nicole is a great helper and babysitter.

We all had a really great time on the campout. I would recommend making sure you bring enough blankets to have at least two nice ones on during nights in October. Once we got Jared onto the air mattress and used his sleeping bag as an extra blanket, we were very comfortable. Janine isn't really fond of camping, so she says, but she said she really enjoyed it. She's a great camper and our families had lots of fun together!