Camping Near Mount St. Helens

This week, we made a spur-of-the-moment decision to go camping.  Peter knew he wanted to take Jeremiah to explore ape caves, so he looked up camp sites in the area.  He found a "free" one at nearby Merrill Lake--just $10 dollars for a "discovery pass" which was really just for access to the lake itself.  This gem of a place is only about 60 miles from our house.  It is a gorgeous drive through the Washington evergreen trees and is at the base of Mount St. Helens.   We decided to let Jeremiah invite a friend and he invited our neighbor Theo.  Originally, just the boys were going to go, but I was feeling adventurous, so I went along too.  And I am so glad I did!  We had a great time.  Wednesday was exploring the Merrill Lake area and the boys spent about 4-5 hours total in the lake.  Games, smores, and a mostly sleepless night followed (lost of loud croaking frogs keeping us up; and some coyotes!).  On Thursday, we went over to ape caves.  Now, I wasn't feeling that adventurous, since I am moderately claustrophobic, so I did not partake in the cave dwelling.  But, the boys had fun while I did a 3-mile (roundtrip) hike at the cave site.  It was a great hike with great views of the south side of St. Helens!  (This is not the "blown out" side that offers even more breaktaking photos.  We might go to the north side next week, but just for a day trip.)  Anyway, it was a great trip!  (I took over 60 photos, so I had to narrow it down to 15 here.  The rest are on Facebook....)

Our site was about 30 feet from the lake through those bushes...

Tranquility

(No filters, no editing......just God's glory captured with an iPhone.)

Sunset

 Roasting marshmallows
(Again, no filter--the only editing was that I took the photo from further away and then cropped it to be close-up.)

 Eating Smores

One last shot in the morning before we left

Lower Ape Cave

Going deeper....

St. Helens!

All photos taken with my iPhone!  I love it!