Adventure Camping

When I was younger, every once in while my parents would take us "Adventure Camping".
Adventure camping is much different than a regular camping trip.
You see, A regular camping trip required months of planning, weeks of shopping and days of packing. We had a destination in mind, we'd plan on staying for about a week, and we would plan and pack accordingly. Every detail of the trip was planned out right down to what snacks we would be eating on which days. My parents had a 15 passenger van, and that thing would be bursting at the seems with tents, sleeping bags, Ice chests, dishes, a camp stove, dutch ovens, and games and activities. Pretty much everything but the kitchen sink.....oh wait, we packed a sink too.
Adventure camping on the other hand, was always a surprise for us kids. We'd come home from school on a Friday and my mom would say "Pack your P.J.s and a warm coat, Dad is getting off of work early and we're going camping!" YAHOO!!! We'd all run around grabbing whatever sleeping bags we could find, throw our stuff in the car, put together some foil dinners and go! Sometimes we'd have a destination in mind, other times we wouldn't. We'd drive a ways until we found a cool spot, then we'd pull over and camp. Some of us would sleep out under the stars, and others would sleep in that big ol' van. Sometimes we'd go hiking, or just play around the camp but it was always an adventure and always so much fun!
So on Friday, when Adam said let's go camping tonight, I was totally game!
I hadn't been adventure camping in a while and I was ready for some fun!
We threw together some food, and clothing and hooked the truck up to our fifth wheel trailer (A.K.A 72 hour Kit).
We drove over to our favorite campsite in the white mountains, a place called Green's Peak. Once we got to "our spot" we made and ate some dinner then we unloaded the bikes and went for a ride. We had a blast riding down the road.

When we got back from the bike ride we made a campfire and made MAMMOTH S'mores. We toasted giant marshmallows, and squished them between two chocolate chip cookies. YUMMY!

The next morning we hiked up the mountain (hill) where we were camped. It was pretty steep, but we all made it to the top and we enjoyed the gorgeous view. On the way down the mountain we sort of lost the trail, but we trusted daddy, and eventually we made it back to camp.

After the hike, we rode the buggy up to the top of Greens peek then we climbed to the top of the fire lookout tower. We could see for miles!

We rode our bikes some more, and then dad had the greatest adventure camping idea ever! He hooked up the wench that was on our buggy to his truck, then fastened the end of it high up around a big tree. He put a pulley on it and made us a ZIP-LINE!!!!! It was so fun! We all played on that thing for hours!



When we were done, it was time to back home and get cleaned up to go watch fire works.
The fireworks show was super!
We had a wonderful 4th of July weekend. I hope we go adventure camping again soon. Anyone want to join us?