Williams Family Fun!: Our 1st Camping Trip of 2009: Black Rock

We camped at Black Rock campground which is about 16 miles out of Idaho City and about four miles shy of Barber Flats, which is where we hit the trailheads. During this trip, we decided that it was not worth the $15/day rate to have the luxury of an outhouse, especially since it was not well maintained, and I think we might try to rig up our own "bathroom" so we can dry camp next time. We did have a fun time with our friends, the Edgar's, and although we did get rained on a few times in camp and thoroughly soaked on our second ride, we survived. I think it was a great Father's Day trip for the two we held captive.

We all enjoyed a couple of rounds of "seek and hide", lasso golf (thanks, mom - it was a FD gift for Theodore), and the kids enjoyed catching lizards and planting them on the side of this tree.

Man Jewelry

The beautiful Miss Alexa - would you believe she's only 12 1/2 yrs old?

The stunning Alexis Jade

The calm, cool, and collected Daniel Edgar

Silly Theodore

Ted trailing Téa on the road towards Barber Flats for
Friday's ride on Hungarian Ridge

The girls at the top of Hungarian Ridge

A huge bird in full riding gear - totally rare find

A cute little cougar up in this tree

Wild teenager approaching

Mamasita rollin' in

Mr. E comin' through

Dead tree standing, the perfect sacrifice

Dead tree falling.

Mr. E had a sudden surge of testosterone and this poor,

unsuspecting tree fell victim to his chainsaw.

Danny with one of many blue bellies he caught.

One example of the nice, moist trails we encountered

The North fork of the Boise River from Hungarian Ridge trail, just above the trailhead

Ted loved this view

The crew headed towards some jumping fun just across the bridge at Barber Flats.

We like this picture because Téa was standing up like daddy.

She's the second one from the end.

So just after that bridge, the TTR-90 literally croaked and rendered itself as non-functional. We ended up leaving it and going back for it with the van and Téa hitched a ride with Ted, but before we left the fun area, she had a chance to try out the KTM 65. It was too tall for her of course, but she took off with confidence and even climbed a sizeable hill. When she fell, the little mighty mouse had no problem picking it up all by herself.

Coop. Lexi, and Téa doing rounds on a little track as they sized up their future bikes.

Day 2's ride was a loop starting at the Barber Flat Trailhead, through Brown's Creek, and then back to camp on the road.

Here you can see we faced an impressive creek crossing at the very beginning of the ride -

this is Rebecca.

Here's Mo, up to her fender in agua

Mr. E, with style

B.B.C., with speed and nice, straight legs - it's the gymnast in me, I suppose. The boots do inhibit the pointing of toes for all those critics out there.

B.B.C. down. Downhill and with spearhead branches to be exact.

As you can see just under my right armpit, I was almost stabbed by a hearty branch -

Ted still can't believe I wasn't impaled.

Téa lost yet another tooth while we were on our ride - Ted says she's got to be the only nine year old to ever lose a tooth on the trail.

Swedish Fish were the perfect and painless instigators.

Lexi down. She can stand up to most falls and be good to go,

but later when she was soaking wet from all the rain and then fell, it was not without tears.

The rain poured and then turned into hail as we tried to take refuge under a tree.

More of the beautiful trail we rode.

After the fall.

Lexi went down first in a very swampy, muddy section, so Ted lifted Téa off the bike to the left, but as he tipped to the right, down he went. There was no solid ground, just a slippery slope of mud, so he ended up downhill, under a completely overturned KTM. It was quite the scene for me to ride up on - I wish I had a picture, but with the urgency to get his bike right side up, there was no time for pictures.