Kenny and Nathan camping

We took Nathan and Kenny camping for the first time this last weekend.  We drove down to Diamond Lake, in Southern Oregon and had a nice relaxing time with the kids and my parents (who camped next to us).  My dad and I took off Saturday and road from Diamond Lake to Crater Lake and around the rim.  It’s about 70 miles round trip, and is such a gorgeous ride.  We left early in the morning, so we spent much of the ride out of the heat, which was nice.  Of course, what was also nice was the snow.  There is still a little bit of snow around the crater, so when I started getting hot, I could quickly hope off the bike and grab a handful.  Of course, the whole reason I ride the rim and suffer through the thousands of feed of climbing at a higher altitude is so I can go down the last hill.  Coming from Crater Lake to Diamond Lake is about a 9 mile downhill, where we ended up traveling faster than my dad’s speedometer could track him (it stopped at 99 km/h (60 mph)).  There are few things I enjoy more on a bike than riding faster than traffic. 🙂

The boys had a great time too.   They got to roast marshmallows, play in the fire, run back and forth on the lake and had their first paddle boat adventure.  Of course, the paddle boating was something I would have liked to have gotten pictures of.  As its been told to me (I was biking at the time with my dad), the paddle boat got swamped by the wake from motor boats and was slowly sinking.  Kenny was a little panicked and Nathan was playing in the rising water.  🙂  And of course, I had to introduce Kenny to one of my favorite parts of camping — putting out the fire.  He helped me dump three big buckets on the fire as it bathed us in steam and ash.  Great times. 🙂

Happily, we are all back and everyone is ready to do it again.  I’ll post pictures as soon as I get a chance to take them off the camera.

–TR