A Day up The North Fork - June 30, 2015

Tuesday - June 30th

We decided to spend today up the North Fork.  Johnny and Marlene have it reserved for the rest of the week, so we needed to go today.

On the way there we got to drive through a forest fire.  It wasn't bad in the area where we passed it.  Grandma said that they had a really dry spring and summer, so the fire conditions are really bad right now.  Fire season usually starts in August for them, but they are already battling fires.

It was fun driving through the fire area and taking pictures.  they had warnings for us not to stop in that area, so we had to take the pictures as we drove past.

We decided to head up to the Canadian border before stopping at the cabin to play.  On the way to Canada, we had to stop for a moose in the road.  I haven't seen a moose in a long time.  It was very beautiful.  By the time my brain thought I should take a picture of this, it was leaving and I didn't have time to get it out before it was gone.

Canada was fun to see.  The girls each took a Canadian rock as a souvenir.

At the cabin, Roger (who is still tired and recovering from his sickness) wanted to use our new dutch oven for the first time.  We had the ingredients to make a yummy soup, then after that we planned to make peach cobbler.

The kids got their swimsuits on and ran to play in the creek, while Roger prepared the fire and I prepared the soup.  Roger relaxed by the fire and kept an eye on the food, while I watched the kids playing in the creek and took pictures and videos.

The water was really cold, but they loved it.  They had so much fun.

The kids dried off and changed back into to their clothes so we could walk around and do some exploring of the property.  They love playing in the barn.  It would be nice if we had more hay to put in their.  It was more fun when there was more hay.

 We finished our exploring just in time for dinner.  The soup we made was really yummy.  We were very pleased with our first Dutch oven meal.  It was yummy yummy!

We cleaned up our dinner then Alissa, Parker, Anastasia, and I went to explore the old house.  Brinley was scared, so she stayed out at the fire with Roger.  We walked around the outside so I could take some pictures then we went inside.

 There is a door in the floor of the kitchen.  I remember seeing it when I was a teenager.  I wanted to go down in there and see what it was, but my mom had warned me not to go in there, so I didn't.  I'm pretty sure I lifted the lid and looked in there, but I listened to my mom and didn't go in there.

Anastasia saw the little door and she really wanted to go in there.  She asked about what was there.  I told her that I didn't know.  all I know is that my mom said, "Don't go down there."  so, I didn't let them go in it.  They really wanted to open it up and look in there, but there was a table on top of it and I thought it would be too big of a hassle to take the table off, so I told them to just leave it alone.  After that, Anastasia kept saying these what if scenarios about what could be down there.  Like what if there is treasure hidden down there and crazy fun stuff like that.  It was funny to think about that.  One day, we'll have to check it out.

  We finished our exploring and went back to the fire.  we were having a really nice day and didn't want to leave yet.  We decided that we would clean up, load all of our stuff out into the truck, then cook our peach cobbler and relax around the fire until it got dark.

As we were loading our stuff into the truck, I looked up and saw a Bear in the field across the road.  I yelled, "There's a bear!"  It really freaked me out.  I always panic when I see a bear.  I had my camera with me all day, but as soon as I set it down, a bear shows up.  I couldn't find my camera fast enough to take a picture.  The bear ran into the trees.  Since there was a bear in the area, we decided not to sit by the fire and make our treat.  Instead, we finished loading our stuff in the truck, Roger put out the fire and we headed home.  We were nervous about the bear, so we had the kids keep watch while we put things away and got ready to go.  The bear was out in the field and it's like it was circling us and slowly coming in closer.  We hurried as fast as we could, so we could get out of there before the bear got too close.

 We stopped to take a few pictures of the fire on the way back to Grandma's.

We had cell phone reception where the fire was, so Anastasia called her dad.  He asked what she was doing and she told him we were taking pictures of a forest fire off the side of the road.  You could hear him loudly say, "What?"  It was kind of funny.  Her parents were worried about her going and the things she had to tell them about at the end of our first 2 days did not make it any better for them.  On the first day, we got caught in a storm and had to leave quickly because of a flash flood warning.  on our second day, we illegally went into Canada and took some rocks, saw a forest fire, a moose, and had to hurry to leave because a bear was circling and closing in on us.

Good Times!