Camping with the Cousins

Wow, this has become quite a walk down memory lane. When we lived in California we were only three hours from Ed's brother Richard and his family. Their three daughters were close to the Erin and Shanna's ages, and their two boys were close in age to our three boys. Poor Dave was just the oldest boy, but he got on well with the girls. We loved to go camping together. It's one of the saddest things we lost when it was necessary to move for Ed's health.

One of the things we loved to do was go rafting down the American River. The area in Sacramento isn't the part that has those incredible rapids. There's just one between the bridge in the south and Goethe Park--the San Juan. Every time we went down it, it was different, depending upon what the water levels were. The American River is wide and fairly shallow. We would drop Ed's motorcycle at Goethe Park and drive up to the bridge (cannot remember it's name now) where we'd haul the food and life vests and rafts to the water. It was a leisurely float down the river and would take about 3 hours. There was a sand barge in the middle of the river at one point that we would always stop at. The kids would run to the top of the barge and quickly float (in deep water) to the end. They'd grab the land, run back, and float again. When we got to Geothe Park at the end, we'd play on the beach while Ed took his motorcycle up to get the van, come pick us up, and we'd go back up to get the motorcycle. We always ended the day by stopping at A&W for a gallon of root beer.

(Click on the photos to see a larger version)


This is Me, David, Shanna, and Erin (from back then left to right) by one of the rafts.


This is the sand dune with David and Shanna on it.


This picture is Erin just as she's about to land on the sand dune after floating down.

When Ed's brother Richard and his family would come we were sometimes able to take them rafting with us.

This above picture includes our god daughter, Dessa (front). That's Carole in the back with Robert on the right.


Above is Richard on the left, his daughters Sharon and Christine (can't tell for sure), and Erin on the right. Erin complains that I always get goofy pictures of her, but she's the one who's always making goofy faces. ;)


This is a picture of my sister-in-law Carolynn and our babies at the time, Evan and Paul. That year the San Juan was really high and rough. It was always an adventure to go over it because of the drop, even if it was really a small rapid, relatively speaking. I remember as we went over it Carolynn's back was to it and my eyes got huge when I saw how big it was. We both screamed really well and the four of us were doused with water, but we kept the boys in the raft and didn't flip over. Phew.


This picture is from sand dune with Dessa, Christine, and Shanna sailing past us. Carolynn and I are on the dune and it looks like Robert is getting ready to get into the water again.

The kids were always very tired at the end of the day:


We were excited at first when we moved to Utah and thought we could raft down the Provo river. Our one and only rafting trip lasted 5 minutes. The river is too narrow and full of debris. A hidden stick poked a huge hole in the raft. *sigh*

The following pictures are from a trip we made to Yosemite with the cousins. Ed's sister, Sis, was able to join us for a few days. It was so much fun!





We also went camping at Calaveras Big Tree. Love that place! Ed and I actually went there on our honeymoon and stayed in a little rustic motel in the town of Arnold.



This dance floor is the base of a tree that was 1300 years old. Those Sequoia Redwoods are amazing.