Russ loves going to Ferron in July-it was a tradition he had with his family growing up. Tradition takes his family down on the 4th of July but since I was scheduled to work the 4th, it was decided that we would both work the 4th and take the weekend of the 24th off to go to Ferron.
The morning of the 24th Ashlee and Jake met up with us at our house as we loaded the 4 wheelers and secured the trailers to head up the mountain. Uncle Ladd had gone and left his camper on the 4th of July to save our camp ground, then went back up the 23 to be there for the weekend. Ashlee and Jake had a "foreign exchange student" living with them at the time so to ensure everyone was able to go, we had 2 kiddos ride with us. It was fun parenting practice :)
By the time we got to camp it was mid afternoon and Ladd's family were out on some adventure. Together we got our trailer's unhooked and set up camp. It wasn't long after lunch that Ladd and his family came back to camp and we all quickly planned to go fishing.
Have I mentioned yet that we took all 3 of our dogs on this camping trip?? yes we the crazy dog people toted all 3 pups camping. It turned out to be a family reunion for the dogs as well seeing as how Uncle Ladd had kept one of our 11 puppies, so with Bandit we had mom pup, dad pup, sister pup, and brother pup. It was a dog rodeo! However, they surprised me and were amazing!! They did so good that they will get to go camping again, next year. Anywho, Thursday night after fishing we took all 4 pups up to a pond by our campground and threw some bumpers to let them swim, run around, and play/fight together. Also I took this picture because Remi was actually swimming in it-she'll attempt to swim and drench herself in their water bucket everyday but she's had a hard time warming up to jumping in big bodies of water.
Friday morning after breakfast we packed up fishing gear, to head to Ferron Reservoir. To everyone's surprise my father in law, new wife, and 2 boys showed up at our campground as we were about to go fishing (They had gotten married that Monday and had told everyone they weren't going to make it because they needed to move). After getting some of their items settled we got on the 4wheelers and went to the reservoir. Highlights included fishing of course, rafting, and watching Jake and Russ take a dip in the freezing water as to not be shown up by the little kiddos who'd jumped in.
Our friend Chad and his family was supposed to be joining us Friday and on our way back to camp we got some service and called him to check in to make sure plan was still on and he knew where he was going. He confirmed everything was under control and he'd be there that evening. Well..... as we got back to camp we ate some fish and started hanging around for a few hours. Chad still wasn't there so Russ decided we could take a little 4 wheeler ride to go see if we could find him (Chad isn't much of an outdoorsman) and bring him back to our camp site. Ash and the girls decided to tag along for a 4 wheeler ride before dinner.
After about an hour ride and no Chad we decided to keep going in case he was having problems farther down the mountain. Ashlee took the girls home and we kept going, and going, and going, and going! Next thing we know we were down the mountain and onto paved roads again. Neither one of us thought we'd be going too far so our biggest mistake was that both our cell phones were back at camp. So we hung out at the end of the dirt road for a while then decided to drive through town, aka Mayfield. At the gas station we got ourselves a fountain drink and sat on the wheeler in the parking lot for a few minutes hoping we'd soon see Chad turn the corner. Never happened! So eventually we decided to head back to camp.
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| Selfie to prove to Chad we really did go into town to find him |
Chad wasn't waiting for us at camp either and so Ladd decided to get into his truck and go call him-we assembled and cooked our tin foil dinners. Ladd came back to report that he wasn't able to get ahold of Chad but the last voicemail from him was from a few hours ago and he had said they were having car problems and were in a totally different spot on the wrong mountain. Ladd said he left him a message and came back to camp. Russ felt terrible and so after dinner he, Ladd, and Jake loaded up the truck and went to call and hopefully find him. (needless to say it was after nine o'clock at night and therefore dark at this point)
I never in a million years thought they would find Chad, so I about died when over an hour later Ash and I were sitting around the campfire and a set of headlights pull into camp, followed by another set of headlights. Chad and family had finally arrived!! Everyone helped get his tent assembled and re-arranged our trailer for Russ's dad and wife to bunk in with us, and then it was off to bed!
Saturday morning Ladd and his family had taken off early to go pick up their son from a nearby scout camp to bring him back for the last night of our trip. The rest of us ate some breakfast then decided to take just the wheelers to go take Chad's family fishing back to Ferron Resevoir. Mark and his little family decided to do their own thing and then they were going to head home within a couple hours. To ensure no one was left out, and that everyone would be able to go somewhere on 4-wheelers(especially with the foreign exchange student, Blanca)-Ash and Jake had borrowed my dad's 4-wheeler for the weekend, we had our wheeler, and we'd also brought the dirt bike for Russ to ride so I'd be able to take passengers on the 4-wheeler. Jaxon loves Russ and was loving on his dirt bike so we strapped Jax to Russ so he could ride with him on it to the Res. Personally, it was the cutest thing!
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| look mom no hands! |
One thing about this Ferron campout I've learned over the last 2 years is that it likes to rain, and you don't go a day without a little down pour at least once a day-sometimes more. Well as we were on our little fishing adventure the thunder and lightning rolled in and started to sprinkle. One glance up at the sky and we saw huge black clouds. Due to the history of Ferron, and how far away from camp we were, the decision was made to quickly pack up our stuff and book it back to camp. Luckily we made it! Ash and Jake were planning on leaving Saturday anyways and with the incoming storm they packed up camp to make it out before it was a muddy mess to try and get the trailer through.
Ash and Jake made it out of camp right as a couple more visitors joined our camp- Ladd's friend Jim, one of his sons, along with Jim's brother and his family pulled into camp and wanted to camp for the night. Chad's family waited out the rain in our trailer and as you can tell by this picture the kids got a little stir crazy...
The weather miraculously cleared up and we decided to make the most of our last night! Jim, and his family headed off to fish and Ladd, his boy Luke, us, and Chad's family took off for a ride. Luke, Russ's 13 year old cousin was on his little dirt bike and Ladd was also on his-rest of us on 4-wheelers. The trail we were heading down didn't appear muddy but soon into it Luke's bike kept stalling on him as the mud would build up around his back tire and wouldn't allow him to move. Russ and Ladd kept "unclogging" it but it would do it again-Luke didn't quite have the muscle mass to force the bike to go. Solution: Ladd rode Luke's bike, and Russ took over Ladd's bike leaving me with my 12 year old chauffeur driver on the trail, and he did great!
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| The view on our way back to camp. I love the mountains! |
That night we hung out around the campfire roasting marshmallows and chatting while the kids played murder in the dark. I feel we lingered around the fire a little longer that night soaking in the last night of our camp trip.
Sunday Russ and Chad went for one last fishing adventure before we left. I stayed behind and packed up camp to make things go faster when they returned. Russ came back with a huge fish, so he was pretty excited that he had made one last fishing attempt. Remi was pretty impressed too.
Camp was packed up, trailers were loaded, fire was put out, and we decided to let Chad lead the way out of camp.... He drives past us as we're saying some goodbyes and we hear a weird noise coming from his 4-wheeler trailer-the mechanic in Russ stops Chad to investigate. Needless to say Chad had gotten extremely lost on his way down and had put his suburban through a LOT to get there. Russ found that he had jacked up his trailer tire and we had to immediately put on the spare or Chad was barely going to make it out of the campground, let alone down the mountain or home.
Pictures don't do it justice but it was pretty bad. We changed to the spare and then we were finally on our way home. I'll have you know Chad had horrible luck this whole trip because his transmission on his suburban went out on his way home :(
Thanks to everyone who came and made this such an amazing trip! It was such a blast and I loved ending my birthday week surrounded by family and friends making quite the memories :)
Here's some more pictures of camp and random adventures from the trip:
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| Hudson's vs. Park's on the teeter-totter |
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| Learning how to ride dirt bikes using Luke's little bike :) |
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| Ashlee captured the cute little moments I see so much at home: a very tired Russ :) haha when he gets real tired he gets in this daze..... |
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| kiddos love Russ! |
Somehow this was the only non selfie shot we got of the 2 of us all week, but I still love it. Thanks for sneaking away from reality with me for the weekend babe, I sure love ya!!
