Camping Pictures

(originally posted on my other blog 7-7-08)

As you may remember, we camped a little over a week ago. We went to our lovely Sequoia National Forest, which we SO enjoy visiting.

After setting camp, we explored, enjoyed and relaxed. We were blessed to be with our dear friends, R and E and their three kids. R is quite adventurous, and among other things, knows how to rock climb. He brought his equipment and all the children got to climb up and repel down!
I have many more pics, Grandma, if you want them. All the children made it up to Daddy, even Troubles! They had a great time.

We also fished in the pond, with a few little fish being caught. We hiked, enjoyed smores and learned that crushing fern and rubbing it on nettle burns makes the stinging stop.

I found a wonderful exoskeleton of a dragonfly nymph that had "made the change" while clinging to a blade of thick grass. I collected it, but it was accidentally crushed before I got a picture. We also got to see a newly emerged dragonfly resting on his discarded exoskeleton. Here is a photo essay on the process. We observed chipmunks, squirrels, birds of various kinds, water skimmers, trout, and lots of insects. We collected pond water and creek water for observation under the microscope.

At home, we found tiny plants and microscopic little worms in the pond water and had a discussion on why you always boil water from natural sources before drinking it! We haven't looked at the creek water yet, so we won't find anything living, I think.

Here is a picture of all of us in front of the Sequoia in our campsite. The 'cave' in the tree that is behind me was big enough for most of the children to fit inside, all at once. Sequoias often have these hollows.