3rd Annual Mammoth Trip

This weekend was the third annual camping trip for C and me. For those of you who have not heard about this trip, basically C and I go camping in the Eastern Sierra for one night and then head up to Mammoth to stay in a condo for two nights. We do a lot of fishing and just bum around the mountains.


This year I decided to try and improve my chances for sleeping and purchased an inflatable air mattress and pump at wal-mart. I don't really sleep great in a tent and I thought this might help.
With mattress packed and a bunch of books for C to read, we took off on Thursday morning, heading to the Lone Pine campground to fish and camp.


The trip up actually went pretty fast. We were listening to the Harry Potter audiobook, which took up the entire trip and we still were not finished! We stopped for some In N Out in Victorville, drove up past Red's Mountain and Randsburg, and pulled into the Lone Pine campground.


Once we got to the campground, we unpacked the car and got everything set up. I blew up the air mattress with the pump and got the tent all set up. I have to admit I actually love doing this. I think I'm a total gear hound. With the site set up, we went off to the stream to do some fishing.

The stream wasn't running as fast as last year, so we were actually able to get the line to float the right way. We walked along the stream, looking for pools to fish in, until we spotted one that had 3 or 4 fish in it. We tried some salmon eggs first, no bites. Then we switched to these trout nuggets, no luck. Then I threw some cheese on the hook. Instant bite. I soon had hooked a fish and given the pole to C to reel it in. We only caught one fish this time, though I had another one hooked but he got off. So we headed back to the camp to cook dinner and get ready for bed.


Dinner was chicken for me and pizza for C. I think this might be where the trouble started. I cooked C's pizza in foil and put it over the campfire on the grill. I also grilled up my chicken over the campfire too. Since the heat was so variable, flashing between really hot and cool, neither the chicken or pizza turned out that great. The cheese was melted, but the crust was soft. The chicken didn't seem quite cooked. Regardless, we did our best to eat, and got in the tent to sleep.


So the air mattress did make the night more comfortable, but I think I am just not the best sleeper. It took me until about 3am to fall asleep and when I woke up, I think I had pinched a nerve in my neck. Getting older blows. It didn't seem to bother C though, he slept like a champ. Even though everytime I moved on the mattress, it seemed to catapult him up into the air, he slept on - waking up at his normal time of 7am.


We packed up camp, loaded the car, and heading up to Bishop for a stop at Schat's Bakery for breakfast. Then after Schat's, we drove up to Mammoth to get some Subway, hit RiteAid for supplies and made our way up to Lake George to start doing some lake fishing. The lake fishing didn't go as well as the stream fishing. We sat at the lake for a few hours without a bite. We ate our Subway, played with some toys and decided to call it a day and check into our condo. This is where things started to really get bad.

The base of my neck was already in pain from sleeping in the tent, now my stomach was starting to hurt. We got checked in, drove up to see the mountain, then stopped to get some dinner. At this point, I was in a cold sweat.... trouble. We had barely gotten back to the condo with our food, that I ran into the bathroom and puked up the previous 24 hours of food. Then I got chills and had to lie down. C was a champ, he ate his food, watched TV, and let me wallow in misery. When it came time for bed, he just crashed out next to me.

The next day was a little better, dranking mostly sprite and water. I ate a bagel, while C had a chocolate donut bar... sigh. We kept it pretty low key. Took a gondola to the top of the mountain, walked around. We went to the pool, where C swam for a while and I passed out on a deck chair. Then we went to the park, where C played while I sat and watched. After that, we called it a day, went home and ate some soup and crackers. After the evening viewing of High School Musical, we went to sleep.

So that's the weekend. We're still at the condo, getting ready to leave to drive home. Just to review, on the first trip I got a speeding ticket on my birthday. On the second trip, I locked my keys in the car. This trip, I got food poisoning. Should I take a hint? I mean, I'm plannning to take Emmy with us next year. Think something will go wrong?

picts

Weight back, hands up, watch the ball hit the bat...

Not to sound like an overly zealous baseball dad, but something clicked today for C. All of a sudden, he went from accidentally making contact to literally hitting every pitch over the wall... I swear that he roped about 20 pitches in a row, no matter where I threw them. You could even see his eyes watching the ball hit the bat... The odd part is that I never really played a lot of baseball or tennis as a kid, but C seems to have really good hand/eye coordination and is pretty good at both sports. So it makes get out there and practice with him.

Ah, who cares? I'm just happy that he is outside in the sun, instead of indoors watching the tv. It's kinda sad how most kids these days spend most of their time in the house. I remember playing all sorts of sports as a kid and mostly being outside all the time.