Reunion in the Rain

(My apologies for all the blur in these photos--I played with light settings and I messed up a lot.)

We reunited with the H family for our yearly camping trip with them. This time we met up in the northern end of Shenandoah National Park. We love the time that we spend with the parents of this family, two people we admire very much, but to avoid feeling completely selfish, I tell myself that we do it for the kids.  They are so cute when they are all together.

Hiking is definitely the most popular activity for visitors to SNP, and we took advantage of the trails.  We hiked the mile-and-a-half Traces Trail before dinner on Thursday.  The following day we repeated that, and then the older three pulled off the entire hike to Overall Run Falls, marching over five miles that morning.

On Friday morning while the dads went back to camp with the youngest three Christanne and I plodded further and further down the mountainside wondering how everyone would do on the two-mile march back up.  It was worth the elevation change to see the cloudy mist move into the hollow. It was so impressive the kids begged to be allowed to continue hiking right into the fog until we turned them around to head back to camp.

That afternoon we drove to Luray for some fishing and swimming on Lake Arrowhead. In spite of beach closure, bait searches, and hook mishaps a handful of fish were finally nabbed and the littlest kids swam until they had wrinkly feet.

We always enjoy campfire with the H family. This year we added to the normal repertoire of bear hunts and singing by telling real-life scary stories--some of them were really scary featuring rattlesnake bites and drunken midnight men in Uruguay. J pulled out a little fictional fearful tale with a reading of "The Hitchhiker" which has about one hundred variations but is creepy every time.

I have made no mention the rain. It seemed like it was either raining or threatening to rain the entire time were were there.  I think we ate three meals as we jumped into cars with our plates full of food and the rain completely doused the fire as I cooked tinfoil breakfast at 8 a.m this morning. We are definitely going to invest in a canopy for future wet camping trips.

Next year we'll do this again because we love these people as family.