Mountain School (aka Fat Camp)- Okay, okay, who would not want to accompany their daughter and her fifth grade class into the north cascades to a beautiful place such as this? ME, ME, ME. I'm thinking a break from work, from home from all things stressful. So on Monday Isabelle and I headed off along with her interpreter Tam and my friend Sarah (and the 25 other kids and a few other chaperone's). It was great, an adventure a fun car ride up. (The rest of the class and chaperons took the school bus, at least I had the good sense to take my own car) We arrived at 12:30 met by an eager team of park rangers. The park rangers helped lug the kids with all their luggage up hill to camp and quickly covered our luggage from the rain. Oh coarse we're thinking where's my room, when is free time? Then reality hit: They
announced we will be outside until dinner... WHAT?????? Outside until dinner? Are you crazy? It's 38 degrees at best. And so it went outside, outside outside. Freezing, freezing, freezing. Rain, snow, sleet, repeat. If you know Isabelle you would know she is the least outdoorsy person you can find. She is at this point... well to be honest, pissed. At first I had a good attitude, this will be fun. So we headed headed out into the wilderness with our trusty ranger Rick. What did we find... SNOW a lot of it. Suck, I had not packed our snow gear. I saw nothing come home that said pack for a ski vacation.
But have heart we heard how amazing the food is here. That will be something to look forward to, a yummy warm dinner. So picture this... A class of kids, wet and cold and hungry. The last time they ate was back at the visitors center at 11:30, the sack lunch their mom packed. Okay we've hiked all day, 6:00, time to eat!!! After removing all our shoes (at a wilderness camp????) we lined up the kids for din din. Salad and a baked potato. What, seriously the kids were looking around for the main course! And so it continued humus, pita chips, carrot sticks dried apples and dates, eggs and ONE pancake. After the
announcement on the second day to "get your layers, we'll be outside for eight hours" being the wusses that we are we packed our bags as quick as we could and practically ran for the car. Tam, myself and
Bellie smiling the whole way down the mountain!!!! Isabelle has never been so happy to see Dairy Queen when we pulled into
Sedro. So the moral of the story is: Mountain School might be fun in May or September but not in a snow / rain storm in March. And Mountain school might be fun if every minute was not spent filling out a note book and analyzing nature. And if you want to drop a few lbs. hang out there for a while you would waif down to nothing in no time. Ethan and Jack... your going with dad!
Rain on top of snow... Brrrrr
Skits, breakfast and (lunch on the trail) dinner and a brief visit to the microscope lab were the few minutes we spent inside. That part was actually cool.
It is a beautiful facility... maybe in summer?
My little trooper
This is the look I got most of the time... "Your not serious?"
Tam was a trooper too! She even hiked around on a hurt knee, thanks for coming with us Tam!!!!
