Just two quick days after we unpacked and cleaned up our Seattle trip, we repacked the car to go camping. It was just for one night, but we had even less room in the car than we did for Seattle. When you have to bring your house and beds with you, it eats up the space!
This was the first time our entire family went on the crawdad hunt and all stayed over night. A couple of years ago I came with Bundle once, but we didn't camp, and Troy brought the big kids once and did camp. So this was a monumental event. What made it really fun is that we turned it from a quick jaunt for crawdads into an overnight playdate with our dear friends the Burnetts, with whom we capture Christmas Trees each year. I guess hunting and gathering is just our thing. They had never heard of going crawdad fishing and were eager to find out what it's all about.
That Friday evening at Strawberry Reservoir was extremely pleasant. I forget how lovely the landscape is up there with the rolling hilly mountains, wildflowers sprouting everywhere and groves of aspen and pine here and there. We were able to nab Troy's favorite camp spot and I got things set up while Troy took the kids down to the shore to set the traps. Not long after that the Burnetts arrived and we spent the evening roasting hot dogs, trying our hand at fire-roasted corn on the cob (delicious!) and experimenting with a new invention Mary brought along called a "woofum." It's basically a marshmallow roasted but instead of a poker on the end there's a thing that looks like a wooden corn. You wrap biscuit dough around the thing, cook it over your coals, and when it's done you end up with this yummy toasty little bowl of bread that you fill with jam or preserves and top with whipped cream. We were cackling with delight they were so delicious.
In the morning after a leisurely breakfast in the Burnett's trailer we headed to the lake to check on our catch. It was not our best year - the traps didn't collect as many lake-bugs as we had hoped but we spent an hour with the kids wading in the water and plucking out more. We ended up with maybe 40, enough to enjoy along side our jambalaya and cornbread, which the Preslars went home to make while the Burnetts (who graciously kept our daughters) stayed and played for a few hours at the lake and campground.
I was glad we got a chance to get home, unpack the car again, air out the bedding, air out ourselves, and clean up a bit before we had company. Somehow the Burnett clan didn't seem to get as stinky and messy as I did. The day was so piping hot but thanks to Troy's installation of our porch sprayers the porch was still very pleasant. We had a wonderful evening of crawdads, crafts on the back porch and watching the kids play on the lawn. The crawdads were delicious as always - thank you butter.
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