Saturday was terrific. Saturnight was another story.
We got up in the cold morning. Everyone had survived. Kathy and I both had sore hips, not used to sleeping on a hard surface.
Breakfast around the campfire included hot chocolate cooked on Ted’s stove. As the sun came up, the world got warmer. We packed up picnic goods and headed for Black Rock Mountain north of Clayton.
Everyone enjoyed the playground and lunch in the park. We stayed for several hours. Long enough for everyone to take a turn on the see-saw, tube slide, and tire swings, among others.
The weather was perfect. Cool in the shade. Warm in the sun. The view of the mountains, overlooking Clayton, was fantastic. In fact, we watched a couple get married at one of the lookouts.
On the way back to the camp site, we bought a bunch of wood for $4. We didn’t want to have to be so cold with such a small fire as the night before.
The rest of the afternoon was spent playing in and around the stream. Danny and I went fishing. I had my portable rod, and he had his fully functional Micky Mouse rod. He is a terrific caster. At one point he cast across to the other bank. He had a weight but, no hook. Didn’t really bother either one of us that there were no fish to be caught.
The water was bone-chilling. No one went deeper than their knees, and that was only because Danny and Shawn were so short. I couldn’t convince anyone to dive in with me. Even Frank wimped out. Good thing.
Ted and the kids and I went for a climb in the mountain-side woods above the stream. Saw some interesting plants and trees and discovered an old dam now broken through and covered with moss.
I turned back to collect some wood as the rest went out to the road. As I was collecting, I spotted something way up one tree. The setting sun was cutting through the trees behind it. My first thought was that an animal was tied up in the tree. I took a few steps closer and thought it might be a person. I was nervous, but took a few more steps closer and realized I was staring eye-to-eye at a man up in the tree. My alarmed brain finally caught on. They guy was in camouflage sitting in a deer stand with bow-and-arrows. He was looking straight at me some 50 feet away. I grunted the first thing that came to me. “Hey.”
He just turned away. He had probably been sitting there all day seeing nothing to shoot at. And here I was making all kinds of racket. I went on about my business, steering clear of his tree, lest I become a target.
When I found Ted down near the road, he thought I was making this up. Nicole had gone in the woods a bit to see if she could find me and came running out frightened about “a man sitting in a chair up in a tree.” She had been in a lower part of the woods, so there were at least two of them. Some fun.
We had a terrific fire as it got dark and colder. We decided it was not as cold as the night before. Grilled steaks over the log fire. Cooked corn and potatoes on the stove. Everything was delicious. The kids roasted marshmallows on Frank’s carefully carved sticks and got to light sparklers before we sent them off to bed.
The adults enjoyed sitting around the fire, drinking beers, stirring the coals, and chatting. That would best be called the end to a perfect day.
The midnight madness that followed is best left for another page.
[Shawn’s screaming?]