Spring Adventure, Or How to Torture Lola

The first warm weekend of the year sent us out on our favorite activity, exploring!

Adventure number one, spelunking.



We visited Boyd Cave, an explorable lava tube. Sarah was completely fine with descending into the dark, cool cavity. Sancho and Lola not so much. They had to be carried by Mike down the stairs into the cave. Lola cried, as if headed to her grave, while in Mike's arms. She was terrified. Once inside, they relaxed a bit.



The flash from the camera gives a deceptively well-lit impression of the cave. This is what the tube looked like without the flash.



It was dark but not scary or very treacherous. I will admit though that the bats overhead made me a little nervous. I made sure not to let Sarah know they were there. An older boy at her school has told her that they suck out your blood. Damn five-year-old boys! They are my worst enemy right now. Still, it was a fun adventure.

To warm up after spending time in the frigid cave, we hiked a little bit, scouted a lot.



And finally found a great spot to spend the night.



In Sarah's mind, all of this was done for only one reason - to make s'mores!



When bedtime rolled around, we were confronted with the problem of what to do with the dogs. You see, they are needy. We knew that if we left them outside of the tent they (read Sancho) would spend the entire night attempting to break into the tent to sleep on my head. With much hesitation, we put three people and two dogs inside of the tent. Surprisingly, it worked out fairly well. They didn't bark, whine or sleep on my head. The cold night air might have had something to do with their good behavior.

Around 3 am, Lola's shivering body woke me up. I picked her up and shoved her into my sleeping bag. I didn't think she would like being stuffed into my sack. Boy was I wrong. She curled up into the fetal position, stuffed her nose under my rib cage and didn't move the rest of the night. She was like a warming rock in my bed. Excellent! I gave her a few extra treats for that.

When the sun rose, Sarah shot out of the tent with her dad. Once the cold air touched her little body, she shot back into the tent with me and requested a hot dog and hot chocolate. Her dad, of course, set her up.



So much fun! I have a feeling our camping gear is going to get a lot of mileage this summer. As we were packing up, Sarah asked if we could camp for five nights next time. A small whimper was heard coming from Lola's direction.