Bumping Lake Getaway

People, it's hot as Hades here in E. Washington and has been for more than ten days. For us that means over 100 degrees F, and many have been 105-109. While we are most thankful for working air conditioning, after a few days it's nice to get away from the constant heat. We went to Bumping Lake

 

Bumping Lake is just to the east of Mt. Rainier National Park boundary so quite a bit higher in elevation than the Tri-Cities, which is about 500 ft. So the days were warm, but it cooled off nicely when the sun went down. We even had clouds and a few sprinkles which never developed into even a light shower.

Matt and Mystie took the kids up to Chinook Pass where they got to play in the snow on one of the hottest days of the year. They really loved that.

Daniel and Melanie did some exploring and found a place for Melanie to do some plein air painting.

Geoff and Amber did a little exploring as well. Yep, the honeymooners joined us for the weekend, giving their new tent a try. The tent was great, but they definitely need some air mattresses for the next trip!

Lots of time was spent just hanging out around our campsite.

There were tadpoles galore in the shallows of the lake with just a few tiny frogs. In a couple of weeks the place will be overrun with frogs! Hans and Jaeger did a bit of tadpole hunting with Aunt Melanie. Don't worry - it was catch and release!

And Uncle Daniel gave a lesson in push ups to the younger set.

The weekend was a great success, although we missed my younger kids who all were working over the weekend. The lake is about three hours' drive from home, so not too far. The campground has no facilities except for vault toilets, no water and electricity at the campsites, so we had to take on water which was a trick because the faucets did not have threaded spouts to attach a hose to. That did not stop Gary though. He thought about it a bit then asked for a plastic bag. I thought, that's weird, got him one, and he proceeded to create a gasket out of the bag and we filled the tank without a lot of spray on us! That's why I married him!

I didn't marry him for his winterizing skills. The trailer kitchen faucet didn't get emptied of water apparently, as when I turned on the water pump, water came streaming out of a rip in the neck of the faucet. Argh! So I resorted to tent camping techniques and all went well. Except for the trailer battery was going out and wouldn't keep the refrigerator lit! So Gary trekked into the Costco in Yakima for a new battery.

The worst though, was when in unhitching and leveling the trailer, the tongue of the trailer wasn't balanced properly on the blocks. As he was raising the tongue, it slipped off and the trailer went forward and boom - the thing hit the ground. Luckily, nothing was broken, but what an alarming event! That was a first in ten years of trailering.  So back to square one, rehitching to the Expedition, repositioning the trailer, leveling on a very stable base, then unhitching.

So a very eventful start to the weekend. I think maybe next year we should take a little preseason camping trip and check out all the systems before we go on a big family trip!