My parents, four brothers, sister-in-law, aunt, uncle, and
cousin came up to the St. Anthony Sand Dunes last weekend to go camping and
ride four wheelers. They decided to
invite us too.
Camping reminds me of my grandpa Skinner. When I was fourteen, my family, my grandpa,
and several aunts and uncles went on a pack-trip. I complained about there being dirt in my
food and water. My grandpa responded, “A
little dirt never hurts.” I repeat that
to myself whenever a small speck of dirt gets in my food.
So it was with this sand-dune camping trip. But is it really fun without a little dirt?
Without the dirt there would have been no four-wheeling, and
that’s all the boys wanted to do. It was
my husband’s first time out on the dunes, and he loved it. The boys had a great time riding up and down
the endless sand dunes. They eventually
wore a four-wheeler to the ground, a tire was popped, and Cody dumped his own
bike in order to avoid crashing into the twelve-year old Wilson. Meanwhile back at camp, the girls chatted and
attempted to stay out of the afternoon sun.
Dirt was inevitably in our food. But the time I got a mouthful was out on the
dunes. Saturday morning the group went
on an “easy” ride for the girls. Katie road
with Jackson, and road with Chris. We
road up and down the smaller sand dunes.
I didn’t know how to move my body with the four-wheeler, plus I didn’t
have a lot to hold onto and couldn’t predict what Chris was going to do next,
so by the time we got back my whole body ached from the jumping and
jarring. At one point we got stuck in
the sand. Chris, not knowing how stuck
we were, tried driving us out, only burying the back tires in the sand even
more, causing a wall of sand to spray me in the back . . . twice. Katie, who was behind us at the time, said
she couldn’t even see me. The crunch of
sand between my teeth wasn’t too pleasant.
Needless to say I was excited for my warm, soapy shower later that
evening.
Even though dirt never hurt us, it’s still not too fun to be
covered in it. Katie and I started
counting down the hours until we could wash away all the dirt, but those boys
kept going on one more round of riding the dunes. So we waited.
We slowly helped pack and got excited when one of the boys would pitch
in too. We laughed as Jefferson and Jackson attempted to take down the tent (it
took them forever), and rejoiced when we saw someone coming back from the last
run, only to find out that one of the four-wheelers had stopped working fifteen
minutes outside of camp.
Our showers were delayed.
Then the rain came just as the broken four-wheeler was being
pulled into camp. That made the boys
hustle to get things packed. By the time
the rain left, the camp was packed up.
Katie and I smiled at each other.
A little rain never hurts, especially if it means we get to take a
shower sooner.
A little dirt never hurts, but it’s always nice to wash it
off.
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| Grandpa thinks he's funny. |
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| Chris putting Lilly to sleep for her morning nap |
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| The family :) |
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