Camping - Stanley, ID

This weekend was supposed to be many things. First, it started out long ago as a planned girls-only weekend, much like we had last year. However, many things have changed since those plans first originated, and the weekend morphed into a family-friendly cabin trip.  However, last week, when I called to confirm my "reservation" at the cabin with my uncle, he realized he double-booked the cabin and had also promised it to one of my other uncles.  So I discussed our plans with my friend, Abby, who was going on the trip with us, and we decided to just make a camping trip out of the weekend.  Since the cabin idea fell through, I let her decide on the camping spot.  She opted for Redfish Lake - I have never camped there (though I have visited a few times) - and I was therefore pretty excited to discover a new place.  However, (there are lots of however's in this story), there was a big music festival going on in Stanley this weekend, so all of the camp spots at Redfish were full.  As in, packed to the max.  And I don't enjoy camping with tons of people around.  So we found a different spot, in the river instead of the lake, a few miles outside of Stanley. 

As soon as we arrived, we broke out the water guns to keep the boys occupied while we set up camp.

However, that quickly turned into an all-out water fight.

Then our water fight turned nasty when mother nature decided to play - she had a few storms in store for us throughout the duration of the weekend.  However, she did provide for a very nice double rainbow (which was too close to us for me to get a full picture). 

Once the storm passed, we cooked up some burgers and ate while the sun set over the mountains.

As soon as the boys went to bed, we broke out the adult beverages and had a great time, with many, many laughs......the biggest being when Eric wasn't watching his step and fell backwards into the river.  The rest of us were laughing too hard to help him (it was only about 2 feet deep), and when he finally joined us back on land, he, too, was laughing uncontrollably.  It was a fantastic night!

The next morning, we discovered that Mother Nature had more storms in store, so we stuck close to camp, letting the boys get their fill of throwing rocks into the river.

When the weather finally started to clear up, we visited the fish hatchery and let the boys fish. 

Then it really started to warm up, so we headed over to Redfish Lake (as did hundreds of other people) to enjoy the beach and the warm lake water.  There were tons of boats out, but we still managed to find a fairly private spot on the beach so the boys could run around and splash in the water.

One thing they managed to find was a (freshly) dead fish floating in the water.  Since it had clearly just died, we let them pick it up and study it for a little while.  They were sure fascinated!

We also took turns floating out into the open water - the weather ended up being perfect in the late afternoon.  And by then, the water was likebath water - perfect!

We also had a little visitor!  As soon as I broke out the trail mix for a snack, these little chipmunks literally walked right up to our hands and helped themselves to not only the nuts, but the M&Ms as well!  They had full cheeks AND bellies by the end of the afternoon.

All in all, it was a perfect camping trip - even though it seemed like we were doomed in the early planning stages.  I couldn't have asked for a better trip!