No Camping This Week

I keep hearing about global warning and we are still waiting for it to hit Alaska. Maybe global warning doesn't apply to Alaska, just like most offers for free shipping. With school starting a week from today, I resorted to desperate measures. I packed the kids up and headed 75 miles north in search of sunnier skies. The boys have been wanting to return to Johnson Lake all summer to paddle their inflatable kayaks and camp. I hated to disappoint them. So I piled all the kids in the car and prayed for a miracle.

When we got to Soldotna it was cloudy but not raining so we went shopping for camping food and other supplies. As we left the store the rain started to fall. We drove around the lake twice, not knowing what to do. In my haste I had not packed the tarps. We debated whether to go back to the store and buy tarps and a canopy. Fortunately, I had a contingent plan. We went back to Soldotna for Plan B: Go Cart Racing.

Last time we went Riley was not tall enough to drive. This time he barely reached the pedals with a bolster behind his back. Sarah and Chris shared a car. Maya wanted to sit in a car, but not with the motor on. Riley looks very serious in these pictures because it was his first time and he is a cautious child. Sarah and Chris are the wreckless speed demons. The boys felt a little better about not being able to camp.

We finished by going shoe shopping for the boys. They needed new shoes for school, one pair for outdoors and one pair for indoors. Plus they got new crocs (or some kind of knock-off brand). Maya walked out with the smallest pair of purple crocs I have ever seen. Fitting two boys with two pairs of shoes while trying to keep Maya in the shoe department was no easy task. Sarah found some shoes, too. So we paid for 10 pairs of shoes and headed home, eating cold chicken, potato wedges and popcorn.

I hope when my sons look back on this experience, they can see it through my eyes: a mother wanting to give her children the moon and the stars (or at least a camping trip in sunshine, which in Alaska, can amount to trying to make the planets align), a big sister spending her vacation from college willing to go camping in the rain, trying to cheer up her little brothers and be supportive of her mom, and a little sister going along for the ride, being a very good sport about a process she has yet to comprehend. I hope they all remember the love, rather than the disappointment, on this trip, as well as all the other misadventures we may experience as a family.


Maya trying a car on for size.


Chris and Sarah tearing it up on the race track.

Riley taking it easy the first time around.

Back home, we made a blazing fire and roasted hot dogs in the fireplace.

Maya tries on Daddy's headband, practicing her runway model walk.