Aloha gang,

We just got back from another three days of family camping. Just thought I would share. On this trip, all the kids and most of the adults went fishing at the lake. My wife and I stayed behind to keep an eye on our camp site as we had been there before. I will share pictures of the fishing when I get them from the other folks. Hey, my soon to be six year old girl caught five fish!!

We had some interesting "neighbors" this time around. First another group of family campers set up a couple of hundred feet away from us. Then on our first night and every night thereafter, a strange old guy shows up around six. He seems very strange and he walks right into our area amongst our children and loiters and smokes. The first night, he showed up as I was getting our fire going. I was tending the fire and he walks up to me and starts telling me to add more wood to the fire as he knows how since he is ex-special forces. I wanted to ex-special forces escort him away from our kids and out of our campsite, but as we ignored him and didn't offer him dinner, he walked off to the other group of families. I think they ignored him too and he left the area...kind of. When he first came by, I asked him where he had set up camp and he refused to tell us. Through our collective snooping, we found out he was sleeping in his van. We found him loitering and smoking later in the evening too, then he split.

Next night, he shows up around dinner time again and walks into our camp. One of the other dads shoo'd him off as I saw him leave pretty quickly. He seems to always show up when I am getting the evening fire going. Really wierd. He didn't go to the other camp area as our previous family neighbors left earlier in the day and a group of young teenage, early 20 year old guys set up camp there with one young boy. I was waiting for Darwin to visit the young guys as they were pretty rowdy and pretty drunk and stoned. We could smell the weed one of the moms heard the unmistakable sounds of hurling coming from YG camp later in the evening. Those guys were hooping and hollering and couldn't start a fire without a gallon of lighter fluid. They would start their fire and of course, once the fluid is burnt off, the fire is out, so they just kept repeating the process. At one point when I looked over, I could see one guy holding the lighter fluid can slighty over his head and squirting down into the fire making blaze pretty spectacularly. That's when I thought Mr. D was going to visit them. I almost had a Darwin award nomination to make. I was telling my wife that if they didn't quiet down by 9ish, I was going to have a talk with them as almost all of our children were either sleeping or trying to sleep. Strange thing is at 9 on the nose, they all all shut down and went to sleep. Later that night around midnight, I smelled cigarette smoke, so I told my wife I was going out to patrol our camp and make a nature stop while I was at it. I don't know if Mr. ex-special forces was hanging around or not, but I did not see him when I made my rounds. He probably remembered his hiding skills. I did spot him in the shadows the previous night around 11 about 50+ feet away from our area.

Once we got our fire going nicely, not even the rains that kep visiting us could put it out. I was proud of our fires.

Anyway, sorry for rambling. I went on a little hike to scout out a trail that I never went on before and to see if I could find a way to a spot for the kids to go and feed the fishes. My apologies for the picture resolution. I didn't bring my camera and used the one on my phone.

Here's the hike:







A marshy area through the tree.



The edge of the lake. There are fishes right in there but you can't see them in the picture.



Here's the lake:



My shady restin' spot after getting back to camp.



The view from the shady restin' spot.



The evening fire.



The music tent...Kumbaya...when the kids that running around in the open field or plying on the hill or eating or fighting or...they would listen to music sing