Monday, July 23, 2012

Boat Camping!

We had been hoping to do something fun this weekend, but there was going to be a thunderstorm all afternoon, evening, and night on Friday.  That was going to put a damper on our plans.  Well, about 4:45 pm the sky cleared.  I checked several weather web sites and from the looks of it, it was supposed to stay clear for the rest of the evening!  We decided to go camping!  We got all of our camping gear, food, and clothes and loaded them on the boat.  We had to fuel the boat and let the rain water drain out, so we didn't launch the boat until 8 pm.  We boated up lake, found a campsite at Mitchell Creek, and set up camp with plenty of light to spare!  :)  I've told you before, but I'll remind you that Lake Chelan is about 60 miles long.  We started in the river, so that was at the very beginning of the lake.  We probably only went about 20 miles up the lake to our campsite.  There are campsites all the way that you can only get to by boat.  They have tent pads, picnic tables, fire pits and pit toilets, so quite comfortable by camping standards!  We found a great spot right on the water for the night.
After dinner, we had to make JiffyPop over the campfire.  A very fun camping tradition!

Our boys are awesome campers!  They never whine or complain while they are camping!

We didn't want to haul and set up our big huge tent for one night, so we took our two smaller backpacking tents.  Jason and I shared the two-person Marmot on the left, and the boys shared the 1-person auto-set-up tent on the right.  I was worried about the boys getting scared during the night and wanting to crawl in with us, but they all 3 slept all night long!  And they even went to sleep pretty easily!

Early morning lake swim was a bit cold!  The water temperature on our end of the lake is about 72-75 degrees this time of year.  Refreshing on a hot day.  Up lake, however, the water temp steadily decreases.  I'm not sure what the temp was by our campsite, but cold enough to deter even my boys who normally don't seem fazed by cold water.



He got in up to his ankles before turning around!

The rest of the day we spent on the boat.  We went back down to warmer water.   Jason skied, we all swam.  



We moored our boat in Manson Bay and swam at their beach.  We also did the tourist thing and walked around their downtown.

Diaper man!

We met up with Kevin, Julianne, Doug, Brielle, and Conner.  We had fun lounging on their boat and visiting. Then, we beached our boat and grilled some dinner.


Julianne and Baby Conner

It was a beautiful day, and good friends made it even better!

He likes being a grandpa!

We listened to the Bach Fest Concert in the park as we drifted by and got off the lake around 9 pm.  It was a lot of fun!  Sunday we had the privilege of the Grillos' company after meeting and spent the day on the beach with them!

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