Kids in Nature

As delightful as camping was for me, nothing, nothing can top the joys of seeing your children interact with nature!

Could we just have a moment of reverent silence for the wonder of experiencing a week without screens, hand controls, or ear buds!!

Yes, thank you, we can.

The river ended up being the source of all things fun and delightful.

To begin with, you had to ride to the river . . . use your own muscles. No rolling along in an air conditioned van.






Once there, you had the option of swimming, jumping from a high rock ledge





into a freezing cold deep pool

or playing at shore's edge, creating masterpieces of unknown significance, purpose, or origin.

The river has created it's own perfect skipping rocks, making for another hour of enjoyment.






Or you can totally remove yourself from all sense of sanity and go tubing.

We did. It was 10 in the morning, damp and grey.






The air was 71 degrees. The water felt like 51 degrees. Not another soul brave or foolish enough to be out on the river.






My rear end felt like it was going to freeze and my feet went numb.

It was magical.

(I do so wish I could say that the tan legs with the perky blue Crocs are mine, but,
unfortunately, mine would be the white legs in the soggy tennis shoes. ::sigh::)

And then there were the falls, where the boys slid down the side on long rock slides, into a deep pool.

And other parents looked askance and wondered to themselves what mother would let her kids slide so recklessly by the falls.

And I looked about blankly and pretended not to know whose kids they were. Nope, never saw them in my life.

And after she got over sobbing about the injustices of not being able to slide by the falls at age 6, Youngest Daughter found fun of her own and skipped over little pools and breathed in the spray and the mist of the blasting falls.





And when each day was over and Nature had worn my kids out to the consistency of wet noodles, they went to bed exhausted, watched over by a "kid's best friend," and got enough sleep to have the strength to get up and do it all again the next day.

And that, my friends, is just another reason why I really, really love camping!