Red Fish Lake

The long needed Hill family campout finally arrived. We filled a caravan of cars full of tents, camera gear, and a mini grocery store to feed eight kids, a seven month pregnant women, a newborn, and eight other adults. We wove our way up the road with the Salmon river to the left of us as we made the five hour drive up to the Sawtooth Mountain Range. Charly hadn't seen these mountains since he was a child, and it was my first time so everything was a huge adventure and semi life changing. We had four walky talkys and put one in each vehicle, then talked on them back and fourth concerning river facts, Pa's driving, and dog leash laws for the last hour spent on the road. After driving around the lake to find the perfect camping spot, we settled in and pitched our tents along with a yellow hammock Charly bought me on our honeymoon. After the dust settled and camp was made it took only a few minutes for us to realize that swinging it was not going to cool us down enough, and so we dawned our swim suits and dove into Red Fish lake. I did a front flip, I might add.

After we sun dried and changed back into our clothes we ate fire roasted hot dogs (is there a more tastier way to cook a dog?) and Charly, Joe, Kyler, Bradley, and I packed our bags to get an early start on the morning. You see, for months we had plans for all of us to do a camping trip in the backcountry. At the last moment, though, we realized our maps were outdated and we would be hiking an extra couple of miles, which is a lot for the littles and double for the older kids and us because we planned on making two hiking trips the first and last day to haul all our gear. So car camping it was...but the backcountry itch just couldn't be scratched. So Chuck and I decided we and the older people would do a one night trip to Cramer lakes. More about that in the next post, though.

I envisioned this awesome jump that Charly and I would do, and I even told him: "Bend you legs like this in the air" as I stood there ready to jump. However, as we both leaped into the air the weight of our bodies pushed the dock down into the water, making it impossible to get into formation. Such is life.

Conversation with Chuck as we walked towards camp after strolling around the lake a bit:
C:"Oh look, my dads fishing"
Me: (with my head down and not looking) "Uh huh."
C: "We should get a picture of that."
Me: "Yeah, with your iphone," then I look up and see him and immediately agree and pull out my camera. It was just so beautiful. A different kind of beauty, too. One you can't quite put your finger on, but I'm sure that I could never live in highly populated areas and especially not the city.