July 4th Weekend

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What a fabulous Fourth of July weekend we had!  We definitely made some memories!  We made a very last minute decision to go camping down by Salem, Oregon and go to the St. Paul Rodeo and carnival for July 4th.  I did not want to go through all the work of packing up to go camping and not know for sure if we would have a site or not.  The only reservation I could get for a tent site was in Salem and I knew from the webiste that this would not be real "camping" but more like "sleeping in a tent" somewhere.  The website had photos of the on-site store, fuel station, bathrooms and showers, laundry room, game room....you get the point.  But, hey, I was not in the mood to pack and plan a rough wilderness trek for seven into the jungles of Oregon anyway!  It was however very funny when we spotted our campsite sign at the same moment we exited the interstate!  Yes, there it was, nestled between Home Depot, Shopco and the freeway!  Who needs stars when you have parking light lamposts, who needs a cooler when you have Winco, and who needs to pack extra batteries and fuel when you have Home Depot?  I am now on a quest to find one of those motion sound sleep radios that offers "traffic and sirens" as an option.  What a night we had!  I told Scott when I woke up in the morning that I was afraid to roll over in the night for fear that I would be hit by a car!  We did our Ancient Indian Tribal vote (I am still trying to get this video to upload) to see if we would be staying there a second night or not.  Kennedy was in a panic to get home for a birthday party and due to a spider bite, Layton had a forearm that made Popeye look like a whimp!  Therefore, the tribe had spoken that we would indeed be packing up camp that day.  We did make it to the St. Paul Rodeo and had a blast.  We spent the first few hours going on Carnival rides and then passed a few hours at the local park while waiting for the Rodeo to start.  St. Paul is a town of 333 people but this weekend it was packed.  There were 10,000 alone in the stadium for the Rodeo.  We absolutely loved watching the rodeo and were amazed at how dangerous it can be.  Know I understand that old country song, "Mamma, Don't let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys"!    We went and hiked up Silver Falls our second day.  What an amazing sight!  We went on about a 5 mile hike and saw four waterfalls and even got to have our picnic lunch under the overhanging cliff of the largest waterfall.  Then we took advantage of our centrally-located campsite and went to the outlet mall on the way home.