So where does “successful trip” come in? Check out these pictures:

This is the river that Paul refilled our water w the filter and Susan got a crawdad bite in the booty.

One of the wild poines all over the State Park. This one was 1 of 4 that went through our 1st night's campsite.

Clouds rolling in after a couple hours of hiking on Day One. Everything pretty much stayed wet the whole time.

The view from our tent the first morning there.

All cleaned up and fed. Outside The Canyons restaurant.

View from The Canyons deck.

When we first got there Susan and I were getting our stuff ready and the kids found a little puddle that was full of tadpoles. They had a blast catching them and letting them go. Once we got things ready we went off into the woods and were having fun. We got to where we wanted to camp and I set up the tent while the kids played in the river and caught more tadpoles. Then all the sudden the rain started. It was pouring so the kids and Susan crawled in the tent while I finished getting things ready. After a few minutes the rain stopped and I started getting ready to cook dinner. Of course the rain started back after a quick break and this time even harder than before. I got in the tent with them and we played in there for a little while, but at this time it was starting to get late so we had to make a decision on if we were going to stay or leave before it got dark. At about 6:30 we made the decision to go home. The rain had gotten a little lighter. If it was just Susan and me we would have stayed but we were pretty sure things were going to get wet inside with that much rain and didn’t want the kids cold and wet.

When we opened up the tent to get out there was basically a river running straight under the tent from up the hill because of all the rain. We decided then that we made the right decision because there was no way the tent was going to hold all that water out. Luckily when we got out the rain stopped…only to start back in full force when we made it back to the car.

We were able to get the kids to leave without much of a fight with the promise that we would stop and get Mexican food for dinner. Anna was hungry and wanted me to somehow go out in the pouring rain to start a fire and cook her dinner so she was OK with going. Tyler was a little more reluctant but agreed. So we drove into Boone and had dinner with two tired kids (by the time we got everything packed up, hiked out and drove to dinner it was about 8:30) which is always fun. As soon as we got in the car after dinner the kids were out and we drove home. We made it home around 11:30 which is EXTREAMLY late for Susan and me. At this point the kids probably think that camping means you go out, set up a tent, it rains a lot while you sit inside for a while and then you pack up and go home. Hopefully we will be able to get out again soon and actually make it through the night without bad weather.

To make things worse, by Sunday the rain had made it to Greensboro and it had also gotten colder so our 50 ride with friends that afternoon got cancelled. We are both tired of the rain now and ready for some nice weather!

P.S. – We took pictures and I will post some as soon as I have a chance to get them off the camera.

1. Tyler is the smallest of all of us but somehow still needed a entire tent to himself.
2. Even with a rain fly on the tent the edges get wet on the inside.
3. Tyler doesn’t like to be wet.
4. Anna LOVES sleeping in a tent and even if she is soaking wet at 2 in the morning she still gets very upset when we tell her that we are going inside.
5. We need a bigger tent.

Neither Tyler nor Anna wanted to go inside but Tyler finally decided at 2 a.m. that he would like to. We got Anna in but only with a promise to do it again when it was dry out. Hopefully we can get a 4 person tent by that time!