Camping over Father's Day Weekend

I realize it's been a very long time since I (David) have posted an update, so I'll take my turn now.

This past weekend Megan and I enjoyed a nice 3 day, 2 night camping excursion with the extended Green clan. My father-in-law's sisters (with spouses) and mother were in Idaho from Iowa, and we decided to go to the Sun Valley area to camp out.

Before we left, however, we enjoyed a family dinner at the Green home in Blackfoot, and the children had a blast, as always.

Kieran and Aiden wrestling around.

Jackson having fun

Really liked this candid shot of Aiden.

After I went to some training for work on Friday morning, I came home, we packed everything into our car, and headed for Sun Valley. Megan and I have developed some traditions out of the drive there. Some of them originated with my family growing up, and some we've just developed on our own. We always make sure that we make a stop in Arco and pick up some kind of ice cream treat, and in Hailey we like to stop at King's and look around. We continued through Sun Valley itself, and met with everyone at the Wood River campground, approximately 10 miles North of Sun Valley.
Friday Night with the Iowa Green side of the family means pizza night, so we loaded up and headed to Sun Valley for dinner, and a little shopping. We found a little candy shop with amazing (and expensive) gourmet caramel apples, which we had to try out. After returning to camp and enjoying the camp fire, as the night wound down we decided to try our hand at a little light writing.
Light writing is when a camera is set up for a long exposure, and different sources of light (in our case, a flashlight) are used to create the image of writing or drawing.

A crude attempt at a sun

Lindsey writing her name.

Curtis forgot that he was facing the camera, and needed to turn around.
My own attempt.

Saturday ended up being somewhat of a dreary day. It rained (more of a drizzle) all day long. It was enough rain to make you realize it was raining, but not enough to truly feel wet.
As the family from Iowa had never been to the Sawtooth recreation area, we decided to explore a lot of it, and see various sights. We began by heading North to Redfish lake, then through Stanley to Sunbeam, a little speck of a town. There is a turn off at Sunbeam that leads to a couple of ghost towns, Bonanza and Custer, with Custer being our destination.
After looking around the ghost town, we headed back toward camp, stopping at the Sawtooth Fish Hatchery along the way. The children had a great time feeding the fish there, and watching them fight for the little bit of food tossed into the pond. From the fish hatchery, Megan, Lindsey and I split from the rest of the group, taking a slower route back to camp. We stopped a few times so I could take photos, including at Alturas Lake, where the Anderton family holds our reunion each year.

Redfish Lake
Leaving Redfish

Curtis and Aiden at Sunbeam

The remains of the Sunbeam Dam (can see the remnants in the lower left)

One of the few remaining buildings a Custer, a ghost town.

Near Custer, I just liked the shot.

Glee at feeding the fish.

More feeding the fish.

Nic took to calling Kieran "Dopey" after the dwarf, due to his long sleeves.

I loved the contrast between the super green fields and the still falling snow.

Alturas Lake. There *should* be a large sandbar here, but with the water levels being extremely high, it has vanished.

View from the Galena Summit overlook.

Overall, we had a great time. Megan has never really loved camping, but we've done our best to make it as comfortable as we can, and she's starting to come around (yay!).
On Sunday morning, we packed up camp, and headed for home. Since it wasn't a large detour for us, we took a different route home and stopped in Burley to wish my brother Doug a happy birthday, and happy father's day. I didn't pull my camera out at all during our stop, but we enjoyed a nice evening with his family.

For all I love of camping, there is something about it, which can be summed up in this final phot I leave you with:



Until next time!