The Gifford Family: Camping at Hat Creek

Camping at Hat Creek

You know those camping trips where everything goes wrong!!! Well this was one of them. Aaron had two days off in a row, so we decided it would be fun to go camping. hahaha. I had everything ready to go when he got home from work so we left our house about 5pm. When we got there we set up camp and were so excited to see this beautiful creek with fish jumping everywhere-we couldn't get out there fast enough. It was frustrating because it was a dog friendly campground, but dogs had to stay on leash. So, I'm holding a fishing pole in one arm, and both dogs leashes in another. The dogs were stoked to see the water and were tugging and dragging me in different directions, and Grace was super onery and just wanted to be held, and WORST of all the only bites we were getting were the ones from the mosquitoes. I'm not sure why the mosquitoes here didn't mind the bug spray but I was getting eaten alive! Finally I turned to Aaron, and yelled at him that I was NOT having fun. (Mind you I'm super allergic to bug bites so they swell up to welts and itch for two weeks. I get it from my mom.) Aaron got mad because I was mad so he yanked his pole out of the water and broke it. The tip snapped in two. It was less than a month old.

We got back into camp at dark and attempted to make some dinner in the dark. We hadn't collected firewood, so made hot dogs on the grill and had some chips and strawberries. I was still getting bit through my pants by those stupid mosquitoes, so I told Aaron I was going to bed. He very graciously put all the food away and played with Grace in the hammock while I calmed down. Around 10:30pm, I changed Grace into jammies and expected that she would go right to bed like she usually does. It didn't happen. I don't know if she ate too many marshmallows or just didn't have the chance to get all worn out but she would not go to sleep. We tried cuddling, but then she would pop on top of us and flip her legs over and laugh laugh. We turned on a show for her on the Ipad, but she would watch it for a while and then run around the tent chasing Kodi. She screamed and cried if we held her in one spot, and I'm sure our neighbors appreciated that. We varied from death threats to snuggling, but she didn't go to sleep until 1:30am! Aaron and I were both beyond done! And then Sadie started crying at the door like she had to go potty. I quickly let her out, knowing she would come right back when she was done. She did not. Finally, I wandered out of the tent in my garments, barefoot, hissing for Sadie to come back because we weren't supposed to have our dogs off leash. I searched for about five minutes and ran back to the tent to wake up Aaron in a panic. This wasn't like her at all. Aaron put on his shoes, and then I saw her walking back up to the tent. I slapped her butt and told her that she was an inconsiderate git, and we both laid back down to sleep.

Seriously, not ten minutes later, Kodi starts gagging like she is about to throw up. Aaron has crazy awesome cat reflexes just for this sound. Literally, it will wake him from a dead sleep. He grabbed her and opened the tent where she proceeded to vomit a huge amount of grass and water right outside the door. Great. Finally, finally, I get to sleep only to wake up a little while later to Aaron cursing. I guess Sadie had woken him up again to go outside...and he let her...without a leash. She was no where to be found. He was pulling on shoes and a coat and cursing like a sailor. I guess she took a walk down to the river all by herself. Aaron shoved her back into the tent and we all pretended we were sleeping until it grew light. It wasn't that long. Aaron went fishing at 6am and I put the sleeping bag over my face because there were a million mosquitoes in our tent from our night time wanderings. I still got bites all over my hands and the top of my head because they weren't covered. Grace slept in until 9am, but Aaron didn't catch anything so as soon as Grace woke up we made breakfast, took down camp, and got out of there. We didn't want to stay another day!