Thankfully there was no rain or snow this morning because it would have certainly been a mess. The temperature when we woke up was still below freezing, and I think that Robby said that the temps last night dipped to 25. Yikes!
When I did wake up, the heat in the camper was on and working hard. We also have two little heaters that do a good job, so when the big heater kicks on you know it is cold. Even though the morning started out cold, the glorious sun was out. We had not seen the sun all weekend long-on the drive home is even when I realized that I left my sunglasses at home.
It was still chilly this morning-maybe that is why my kiddos were still sleeping. Graham was the only one who woke up on his own. We had to start moving around and opening curtains and blinds so the others would start stirring. Tomorrow is going to be tough for them. They did get into bed though at 10 tonight so that is about 2 hours earlier than usual.
There was a fire this morning, but not a blazing one. The littles all spent their morning riding the scooters, bikes and so many other toys that had wheels. The bigs spent their time around the campfire and then later sitting at a picnic table after the neighbor pulled out.
The adults spent their time slowing putting things away. Some of our things we were able to put up for good, but most outside things we just had to put in the van. The van is nice to bring for one reason-storage! Our tents were still wet so they were shoved in the van along with the scooters and hoverboards which are caked in mud.
Tomorrow hopefully it will be sunny because Robby plans to hose everything off-the tent legs, the chairs, tarps, shoes, scooters, mats and probably some more things. Wowzers, things are muddy. And you certainly can't put them away like that at all.
As he works on that, my plan is to work on the inside. We clean every time that we come home, but after this trip, things need a bit more of a deep cleaning. Packing for trips is certainly a whole lot easier with the camper, but coming home is pretty rough.
Since there was mud and lots and lots of smoke everything that can be is being washed. Not only sheets, but tons and tons of blankets that we use in the camper. We are currently on at least load 9 and have a few more to go.
Now it is a lot of work, but at the end of the day tomorrow I will set back and marvel at how easy it really was, and I will be excited that the camper and everything in it is ready to go again.
I think that the kids could have stayed another few days. I know with the sun and pretty weather that they were expecting, we could have stayed another few days for sure. Heck, Robby and I could live on the road. I just can't figure out how to do school on the road-there is just too much stuff!
It really was so pretty that I hated to leave-we probably should have gone on the hike one more time to see it in the bright sunlight. We all loaded up about 1 and headed out of the valley. Reagan rode with the Heltz, and they left about 30 minutes before us.
Then we drove to the interstate in front of the Crafts but with 2 of the Craft girls with us. They moved in front of us after we tried to get more propane on the way home, but their machine was broken. The drive home didn't take long at all, and soon the Crafts were leaving, and I was running to pick up Reagan.
She did miss out on the camper unloading tonight, because she came home to shower and then she left again to go to Alyssa's for a bonfire-I guess she just couldn't get enough camping. Everyone that was left here went to town unloading. The big boys helped Robby with the big things for a bit while I had everyone else running load after load in the house. Whenever we do things like this, I always learn that some folks can just put things away better than other folks!
I had left another project out for me-I had gone through 9 bins of clothes to donate last week. So they would air out, I folded them and set them in piles in the school room. Those piles covered the school room so before any school could start tomorrow I had to bag up 12 garbage bags full of clothes!
Soon though the camper was emptied and the laundry was going. The inside of the house was straight, and tomorrow we only have the outside stuff to deal with, clean the inside and put away all of the laundry so not too horrible.
For some reason, Robby and I were both in a bit of a funk while packing for this trip. We love to go, but we were just a bit apprehensive about the cold and rain. We were also worried that folks might bail on us after we had done our packing, so we drug out feet a bit while packing.
I will say though that we had no reason to be worried-we had such a wonderful time. The rain was messy, and it was cold, but we were never miserable. The fire was always warm and for the most part we did stay dry. The mud can be cleaned off of things, but we sure won't forget all of the memories that we made.
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