West Fork Trip

Dave has had a standing date with the West Fork of the Duschesne river, on the second Saturday in July, every year ,for his whole life. I used to go with him before the Hoodlums came along, and I have great memories of those times. This time was a little different however, and I have compiled a small list of the differences in camping trips, B.C. (before chitlins) and W.T.H.W.W.T. (What the hell were we thinking.)

B.C.-The air mattress was always bouncin', ye-ah!
W.T.H.W.W.T.-3 wild kids and two adults on the same air mattress and the friggin' thing never stopped moving, which is not the same.


B.C.-Taking a bath in DEET, so the flies and mosquitoes would steer clear.
W.T.H.W.W.T.- Walking the fine line of 'apply sparingly to children' warning labels, and thoughts of West Nile virulent kids.

B.C.-Retreating to camp anytime, to put my feet up and read some mindless magazine.
W.T.H.W.W.T.- Having to strip the cover off my Cosmo, now that Dawson can read, as to avoid any premature conversations, and so my Father-in-law is spared the thought of my becoming the 'Orgasm Whisperer' as promised on the cover of the August issue.


B.C.-Fishing a good half-mile of river with Daveskins, and the only thing breaking the comfortable silence, was the sound of trout after trout being caught.

W.T.H.W.W.T.- Packing a kid on our backs and trying to catch at least one fish, while the Boyz, pelted our flies with rocks, and laughed and screamed and sang.



Along with this short list of before and afters', is an even longer list of the ridiculous, and fun things the Hoodlums brought to our family camping trip. I have never had as much fun positioning and repositioning dead snakes for pictures, hoping to make it look like no one in our family is petrified of the creepy crawlers. We counted 84 pot guts, which the kids chased non-stop, and speculated on the amount of time it would have taken for Allen Sweat to carve his name into every last quakie we passed. Really, every last one.



Dawson and Dyl, insisted on picking the perfect bouquet of wildflowers for me, and conducted a search all over the mountain until they found just the right red ones. We had time to throw the football around, as well as the occasional axe contest. (hope that doesn't come back to bite us.)

There was a wonderful afternoon of target shooting, where Dylie showed us that he had inherited his mother's style of shooting. Basically, a horrifying 2 minutes worth of getting off as many rounds as you can, without really aiming at anything, and shooting from the hip, cause' it looks cooler. And of course, the Boyz had a great time roasting the marshmallows for our s'mores. With the amount of charred mallow we ate, it's pretty much a given that our life spans were shortened, but it was worth it, for our fun, family camping trip.

The best part of camping, hands down, is the absoulute exhaustion!