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Last weekend managed to go camping for our one time this summer.  I love camping.  TripletDad is trying to love camping.  The triplets LOVE camping. This is our third summer camping trip in as many years.

We went with 4 other families to a great camp ground at Blue Lakes off Mormon Immigrant Trail.  Lots of lakes, lots of trails, lots of fishing, clean camp grounds, lots of shade.  The kids had plenty of boulders to climb and a lot of space to explore. Pit toilets, but we will forgive that for all the great points this site provided.

The one thing it didn’t have was Bear Boxes.  But it did have a resident bear – we were told.  So we diligently put all our food stuffs away in our van every night.  Not a great option but the best one at hand.  Unfortunately, Saturday night we forgot to take our trash to the locked metal dumpster before bed.

11:00 - I wake up to TripletDad scurrying to the tent flap to peer out with a flashlight.  “An animal just walked by our tent,” he said.  My mind immediately jumps to The Bear.  I’m thinking, what is he doing unzipping the tent and shining a flashlight out?!  Then he says,” It’s the bear! It’s got our trash and I just shined the flashlight in its face!!!”  OMG! It was 8 ft away outside our tent!

He zipped the tent shut and jumped back to the middle of the tent and sat on me.  I don’t know why he did that, but he did.  I looked over at the kids – sound asleep and I was desperately hoping they stayed that way.  We sat like that for 20 minutes. Seriously. But didn’t hear anything else.

We felt like idiots because neither of us had the slightest idea of what we should do if the bear should take an interest in our tent.  Luckily we were smart enough to realize you never bring food into your tent in bear country.

We finally fell back asleep.  Then I woke up at 1:00 to the sound of the bear walking through our site again.  I grabbed TripletDad and whispered, “It’s back!”  Right then we heard the clanking of metal dishes at the site next to us.  TD tried to go out!  I held him back and unzipped just the top of the flap.  I saw other flashlights scanning the area from two other sites.  I called out, “Are you outside?  Is it gone?”  The other dad confirmed it was all clear so I let TD out.  They cleaned up the campsites (it turned out the other family had left their dirty dishes out, but the sound of them falling and clanking had startled the bear and he ran off).  They took the trash down to the dumpsters.  And that family let me use their port-o-potty in their trailer, thankfully enough, because I was too scared to go down the road to the pit toilet.  I was so grateful that the kids did not wake up the entire time so I never had to venture to the toilet with any of them either.

What an adventure!

We both agreed that the benefits of the campground, and the fun of the rest of the trip, were so good that we would visit that place again. But before we do, we are investing in our own port-o-potty for our tent and a cow bell to clang to scare off any other bears!