The weekend before I departed for my six week stay in Reno, Brooke, Dylan, Ella and I were supposed to go camping with our Sunday School class, a yearly trip that we have come to enjoy quite a bit. It’s nothing rugged, simply a weekend at a campground with a gaggle of kids and some good friends and good food.
Needless to say, with everything I had going on, we had to bow out. This past weekend was our “make-up” date. Along with 3 1/2 other couples from our class and their kids (20 of us in all), we spent Friday through midday Sunday at the KOA campground in Boone, N.C.
On Friday evening, after everyone got set up and settled in, we all went to eat at the Dan’l Boone Inn. It was pretty good. Kind of like an all-you-can-eat Wade’s. In the same vein, but not as good as the Dillard House. Definitely not on the same level as the Blue Willow Inn.
Dylan got to play nonstop with his friends for two days. And despite a bit of whining, he was pretty good for the most part. He got to play mini golf and swim on Saturday.
On Saturday afternoon, we went with Stuart and his two boys on a short hike, easy enough for 4- and 5-year-olds. We drove to the other side of Boone to the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped at the Cone Manor House, near Blowing Rock and overlooking Bass Lake. The grounds are home to numerous horse and foot trails. We probably hiked between a mile and two miles. We also saw a couple dozen horseback riders.
Ella was the hit of the camp. Some of the kids wanted to hang around her the whole time. And she was the only one in our tent who had absolutely no trouble sleeping. She got a bruise when Dylan ran into her pack-n-play with a big metal dump truck. But she was a trooper. She even enjoyed the hike from her perch atop the carrier we have that Brooke wore on her back.
After we left Sunday, we stopped by the Mast General Store in Valley Cruces before heading home.
While I didn’t sleep well … a combination of the hard ground, the cool nights and the four of us in a two-person sleeping bag … I’d have gladly stayed another week rather than come back to work and wait to hear who’s going to get laid off.
Raising Two Americans 