We went camping last weekend at Caswell Memorial State Park in Ripon, CA. We had gone last year and enjoyed ourselves and decided to go again. It has water (the Stanislas River), shade and is only an hour and 15 minutes from home!
We even got our same campsite from last year!
Thursday when we arrived, we set up camp and then got our swim suits on, inflated the rafts and tubes and headed down to the river. The river is only about 2-3 feet deep in most places and has a gentle current. It took us about an hour to float down to the day use area and then hiked back about 20 minutes to our campsite. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures since we were in the water ... but it was fun and we looked great! Calissa floated down on her pink tube (on her stomach) with her goggles on and head in the water informing us about the fish and logs on the bottom! Thursday night we had foil dinners and s'mores and played some Apples to Apples. It was not very crowded in the campground and nice and quiet. The boys were in their own tent and I told them to turn off the light at 10 PM. I guess I wasn't specific enough because they didn't turn on their DS's until 1 AM! At that point Parker had to go to the bathroom (thank goodness for boys)! Conner then got up at 2 AM (not sure if he had been asleep yet or not) and had to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately that one required a walk down to the bathrooms. Travis staggered down the street with Conner and surprised some animal in the bushes!
Thursday when we arrived, we set up camp and then got our swim suits on, inflated the rafts and tubes and headed down to the river. The river is only about 2-3 feet deep in most places and has a gentle current. It took us about an hour to float down to the day use area and then hiked back about 20 minutes to our campsite. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures since we were in the water ... but it was fun and we looked great! Calissa floated down on her pink tube (on her stomach) with her goggles on and head in the water informing us about the fish and logs on the bottom! Thursday night we had foil dinners and s'mores and played some Apples to Apples. It was not very crowded in the campground and nice and quiet. The boys were in their own tent and I told them to turn off the light at 10 PM. I guess I wasn't specific enough because they didn't turn on their DS's until 1 AM! At that point Parker had to go to the bathroom (thank goodness for boys)! Conner then got up at 2 AM (not sure if he had been asleep yet or not) and had to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately that one required a walk down to the bathrooms. Travis staggered down the street with Conner and surprised some animal in the bushes!
Friday, after breakfast we went on a hike (with cranky, tired children)! On the way we saw a big cow drinking in the river. We had heard some cows the day before as we floated down the river.
My kind of hiking ... lots of shade!!
After the hike taking a break on the grass.
Happier kids?
Resting before we went down the river again. Friday afternoon we went down to the river again. We started off, a little more confident this time since we had done it yesterday and knew how deep the water was and what to expect. After about 15 minutes we went around a bend in the river and there were about 10 cows at the edge and in the middle of the river. We yelled at Parker to grab a hold of Calissa so she wouldn't float right into the cows and hung out for a few minutes wondering what we should do. I wish I had had the camera to take a picture!! Eventually the cows moved to the edge of the river and we hurried on by them laughing all the way! A little farther down the river we came upon the rope swing that we had discovered the day before. Parker was the only one to try it on Thursday, but Conner, Calissa and Travis tried it on Friday. Parker kept trying to climb higher on the hillside and was grabbing a root when all of a sudden he awoke about 30 daddy longlegs. He decided to swing from a little farther down after that. Travis went a few times and then landed in the river and pulled up his shoe that had fallen off. Unfortunately the straps were still connected to his leg! He had a rough walk back to our campsite with a broken shoe!
Friday night we had dinner, played Five Crowns, had S'mores and read a few chapters of Catching Fire. We all slept better on Friday night!
Saturday, we had breakfast and then packed up camp. We had a great time, but it's always wonderful to come back home, take and shower and get to sleep in our own beds!
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