Eilers 6: Bear Hunt!

Enchanted Rock from the bottom

another view of Enchanted Rock

Friday afternoon we left town and headed to Fredericksburg. We were headed to Enchanted Rock. The whole Eilers family was going to be there!! All of Brent's brother's and sister's came, including, husbands/wives (minus susanna), all the kids and Opa and Oma. All together there were 19 of us; 10 adults and 9 kids. Good thing we were still one up on the kiddos. We arrived at our destination around 4:30, ready to pick out our campsites and set up camp. Our crew was the first to arrive at Enchanted Rock, so we were set up and unpacked by the time the others started arriving. Brent did such a great job of picking our campsites. It was just a small walk to the restrooms (which were clean and had showers!) and a great play area for the kids, yet we were not in the midst of other campers!

By the time Opa and Oma arrived (they were the last ones to get there) we were all ready to EAT DINNER! Aunt Michelle and Oma were in charge of dinner and came prepared with fish, which they caught the weekend before, tortillas, cheese, black bean salsa and chips! YUMMY! While waiting for dinner and before it got dark, Daniel and Brent took some of the boys up the small rock for a fun adventure. They almost made it all the way to the top! Ezra was such a trooper and went all the way up with them and came back down without any harm. Then, Michelle and Bradley took a group of kids a little later..now it was getting a little more dark. When I came back from our tent, I realized Ezra went climbing the rock AGAIN! I was so proud. This time, though, he came down the rock crying. I guess on the way down, he kinda fell and hit his head on a rock! He was done after that. He wanted to go to the tent and go "night night" with his blankie! I mean, who can blame him? Both kids were down and out by 9-930! The rest of the night the adults sat around the camp fire talking until 11:30. We then headed to bed because we had a big rock to climb the next day!

Around 2 o'clock in the morning, thunder started rolling in! It was crazy windy with thunder and lightning. Brent rushed out and with some other of our campers to make sure things wouldnt blow away. Well, the thunder and wind only lasted about 30 minutes or so with a very light drizzle. We woke up that next morning to a beautiful morning!

Breakfast tacos were served, campers were geared up and we were ready to climb the BIG ROCK by 9am!! It was the PERFECT time to go. It was sunny but cool with a nice breeze. Oma, Fr. Brian (hurt calf muscle) and Emersyn stayed behind to "watch" our stuff and take a walk around the campground. All kids 8 yrs old and UNDER, did AMAZING!! We took a couple sit down breaks on the way up to catch our breath and take in the view, but made it all the way to the top in about 30 minutes!! Good job kids!

Well, once at the top, we had to go looking for those bears! No bears in sight that we could see, but we knew they were out there! We walked around the top of the rock a little and found a couple of fun things. We definitely found the bears "drinking hole", that had tadpoles in it. We also found the bears HOUSE! Such a cool cave. All the kids wanted to go in the cave even though it was a little dark and "spooky". Fortunately the bear was out to lunch! It took some muscles to heave kids up and down some of the rocks to get out of the cave, but we all made it in ONE PIECE!

As we were heading down the rock, we decided to go down a tougher path that didn't involve going straight down. It was so fun. We saw deer on the way down and got to climb up and down different rocks. I mean we had a great time! We were finished climbing and back at camp by 11! So, we prepared lunch and sat around to wind down. Some of the campers went to check out the creek while the rest of us packed up to be ready to leave by 2.

We had fun! Ezra and Emersyn did GREAT and we would LOVE to do it again!