On the last day in June, we went camping overnight to Wallace Lake.
It was so hot in Salmon, and the cool mountain air was beckoning to us! We hadn't been to Wallace Lake since 2010, and I felt like it would be a good place to go to. Here's links to see our previous camping trips there:
As soon as we arrived on Sunday afternoon and set up camp, some friends of ours were driving out of the campground, and we talked with them for a few minutes and discovered that once they left, we would be the only ones at the campground. It was awesome to have the entire place to ourselves! We loved the peacefulness and the quiet serenity that the mountain lake provided without others there!
Kanyon with the "perfect walking stick" he found.
That evening, we walked down to the lake. Some of the boys went fishing...
and some of the boys chose to make good use of their pocket knives instead!
I took a dip in the cold water, and it felt heavenly...
until all the little fish kept trying to nibble parts of my body which got annoying and I got out!
Jonah and Ammon were quick to catch fish that evening (sorry, no photos of Ammon with his fish). Jonah caught the biggest one, and the only one worth keeping:
Josh told the boys about a time when he was a little boy and was at Hat Creek. He caught a fish, and his dad made him clean it, cook it, and eat it. And that was the last fish he ever ate that he caught. He thought it was an important lesson to teach the boys--if you keep the fish, you need to eat it. So he told the boys he was going to teach them how to clean the fish, so they could eat it, too. We took the fish up to our campsite, and Josh went through the whole process with them, which completely grossed the boys out (as evident in each one of these photos):
1. Cleaned it.
2. Cut its head off
3. Gutted it
4. Rinsed it out
Then he grilled it for them--as an after-dinner snack (we'd already had grilled pork chops).
After it was cooked through, I pulled most of the bones out of it and we ate little bits of the cooked fish. I thought it was pretty delicious! Some of the boys thought it would've been better with ketchup on it, though!
That evening, Ammon set up his tent near our trailer, and he got the fire kindling chopped up for us! I love having growing boys that help with the workload!
The fire is the best part of camping for the younger boys! They love to find and burn sticks, burn garbage, and cook food over the fire.
I taught Ammon how to play Solitaire that night with face cards, and we played several rounds of that, as well as some Phase 10 and SkipBo, our usual camping card games. When it got dark, we went to bed and had a long night due to Kanyon waking up several times throughout the night (Ammon slept pretty well as the lone man in the tent, though).
The next morning, we ate breakfast, Josh made another campfire, and the boys rode bikes around the quiet campground for a while. Then we headed back down to the lake for more fishing in the calm morning water.
Micah was really determined to catch a fish, but unfortunately, he {once again} didn't catch a single bite. However, Kanyon caught two that morning and was so excited about it! They were both small, and we turned them both back into the water after we captured the moments on film.
We got camp all packed up and cleaned up and headed out around 11:00. By that time, several fishermen had arrived and we were no longer alone at the campground anymore. It had been an enjoyable overnight retreat, and we were all a little sad to leave.
On the way down the hill to re-enter the Salmon Valley, we got a flat tire on the trailer. Josh and Ammon got right to work fixing the problem by removing it and adding the spare. What a good little slave-laborer Ammon has become this summer!
Then as we were driving into Salmon, the transmission went out on the truck. Our short, overnight trip quickly turned into a very expensive one! It's been over a month now since it happened, and we still haven't gotten our truck back from the mechanic's shop, so we were unable to go camping again in July. I'm glad we went on this excursion to Wallace Lake, though, because despite it ending on a sour note, the rest of the camping trip was good enough to make up the difference!
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