Finally, we finished our trip by eating at Pickles Place, where you can get deep fried pickles. I made the kids try them but neither were terribly impressed, which I was OK with because then I got to eat them all.

We got there and got set up and then went to work having fun. Mason and Seth and Caleb tried to stick smoking sticks down vole holes in the ground to “smoke them out” and very few square inches of skin got burned in the process.

We climbed up to the top of a big pile of rocks, where I was sure that at least one broken bone would occur, but we escaped without much incident. Whitney was able to climb to the very top of the course on her first try, which was pretty amazing. She did a great job, and Mason did as well.

We cooked up some prickly pears but they didn’t taste very good. The big difference was that in Virginia, when we go camping all we need is a sheet to cover up with. But Idaho can get cold at night, and luckily Steve had good sleeping bags for the kids.

The next day we found yet another pile of rocks (can you believe that) and the kids played dragons on them. Whitney was also trying to attract a chipmunk to her, which eventually ate out of her hand. She also found some obsidian which was pretty cool.

Mason had found a piece of steel square tubing and thought the fire would melt it. I didn’t think it would, and when he wondered how they did it in the olden days I told him they used a bellows to pump more air into the furnace and make it hotter. So he came back with an air pump that we used to use to pump up air mattresses, and I found a hollow tent pole to focus the air into the fire. We got the coals white hot and were able to smash the steel tubing pretty good. We don’t have a sword yet but maybe one day we will.

I also added some other pictures of Mason. I went into his bedroom to turn off his music and found that he had figured out a neat method of holding his iPod. Also, I don’t understand how he sleeps with so much junk in his bed.

The weather was pretty nice; it wasn’t too hot or cold but was kind of windy. We walked down the path by the canal and by several locks. Eventually we veered off the path and down into the rocks by the river. The kids (we had Abby that day so there were three kids) had a lot of fun climbing and scrambling on the boulders.

Eventually we found Billy Goat Trail. It is almost 5 miles long, and can be quite tricky in places. Of course Mason loved it, but the girls did pretty good as well. Whitney had a pretty bad fall when she was heading down a slippery slope of rock, tripped and almost went facefirst into a rock but somehow she stopped herself.

We ate a little lunch while taking a break about halfway through the trail and made it back to the car, which was about 1 miles too far away, cause they kids were really dragging. Between the Billy Goat Trail and the other trails we went on it was a lot of walking even for me. Pictures follow the break.

Whitney and Heidi’s was more traditional, with a beautiful blue lake and a cute dog and lots of pretty icicles. It also had a very nice wreath over the front door.

They also went on a couple roller coaster things, which were only about thirty yards in circumference, but lasted more than five minutes each. In fact, one seemed to go five minutes forward, then reversed direction. They went so long it seemed like Mason was going to puke but he didn’t. Then we were going to go to Cici’s to eat pizza but Mason decided he wanted a Subway sandwich instead, and ate an entire footlong chicken sandwich.

For his birthday, he got Deer Drive for the Wii, Bakugan Brawlers (with an included Bakugan) for the DS from Grandma Linda and Grandpa Herb, a skateboard and pads, clothes and money which was used to purchase even more Bakugans from Grandma Nancy and several other items from even more family and friends.

Sunday night a fellow camper gave a presentation on astronomy, and brought along a powerful telescope. We all got to see the moons of Jupiter and a galaxy that is the farthest object visible. Mason was hoping it was the Star Wars galaxy.

We also went out along the river bank and on the way back found a copperhead snake that had recently been run over. So, we did what Columbus would have done and ate it. Seriously, we ate roadkill. At least me and Mason did (and Whitney did try a tiny bite). We skinned it, fried it and ate it. On one of our walks we found a huge vine that I converted into a swing and watched Mason climb up about 20 feet without even thinking twice about it.

We also had fun kicking rocks down the road and catching frogs.