The Kaiser's: August 2011

On our 8th anniversary Rory had to work, so we planned to celebrate the next couple of days and go on a little mini vacation. There was a traveling vietnam wall that was going to be in Lewiston which is about 3 hours from us and Rory was really wanting to check it out. So, I thought to make it a bit more interesting, we could camp out for a couple of days in the area. Growing up my family was big on camping, so you'd think that it would come naturally to me right? Ya, not so much. Even though I grew up in the country, I prefer the city, and love modern conveniences. I'll pass on the whole 'roughing it' stuff. But for my husband (who dreams of camping out in literally NOWHERE) I will compromise a little bit. I found a hells canyon campground that looked to be on the outskirts of Lewiston, so I set us up some reservations. We were late heading out of town, but thought we would be able to make it in time for the wall. (it was the last day, and they only went until 4pm) Well, then right before we got to Moscow, there was a major road back up.

I don't know if you can really tell, but off the road next to the ambulance is a motorcycle, and in the middle of the road is life flight. They weren't in too much of a hurry, so we're thinking the accident was fatal.

Here's the helicopter taking off. I think we sat around in traffic for a good 1/2 hour or more. So of course we were late getting into Lewiston, and pulled into the fairgrounds just as they were getting the wall packed up. Rory was pretty disappointed, which I don't blame him. The real wall is amazing, and very humbling, and I'm sure this miniature version is still spectacular. So we started heading out to the campground, and were very surprised to find that it wasn't quite on the outskirts of town. It was more or less in town! It was pretty funny though. Rory and me joke that it was my kind of camping. We had flushing toilets, showers, grassed area for the tent, paved walking paths, etc. It actually turned out to be a blessing that it was in town though because we found out pretty quickly that we were not nearly as prepared as we thought. When we were unloading everything, we realized we didn't have any chairs to put around the campfire. What?! How were we suppose to make smores?! Sit on the ground!?? So we loaded up in the car and headed to Big 5 sporting goods, which was just about 10 minutes away. We also found that we had forgotten a lighter as well, so had to add that to the purchase. As soon as we got back, it was getting dark and we just had enough time to get the fire started, and to have dinner. We all got cuddled up in our tent with the two air mattresses and blankets and settled in for the night...watching transformers on our portable dvd player. That night we were all awake about 3 am freezing our butts off. We were all shivering and putting on all the extra clothes we could find. It was a LONG night. (Note to self, ALWAYS bring extra blankets) I ended up getting up about 4 am and going into the nearby bathrooms where I held my hands and feet under the hand dryer for a while just to warm them up.

after the first night. At least there's one happy camper!

i had some great bed head going on!

The next day, we headed to Ross to pick up some more blankets for that night. lol The following night wasn't quite as cold, but it was still a little chilly. It was definately quite a memorable time. We found we also forgot to pack socks (for me), extra pants (for me), and extra t-shirts (for Rory). hehe. The day we packed up to head home, we went for a drive along the snake river canyon to see how far we could get to Hells Canyon. It was beautiful scenery and we found a stop along the road where there were some amazing etches in some rocks.