Jemimah Takes a Retreat

A couple times a year I like to take a few days away from the chaos and have a 2 or 3 day retreat. This time I decided to take Jemimah out for 3 days by myself. I’ve never done that before, but it’s the perfect time of year for a retreat - school isn’t out, so the campgrounds are pretty quiet, and the weather is decent.

  

 

I’m not physically able to do all the setup myself (I can’t crawl on the ground to set the jacks and such, and I’ve never actually parked it in a campground) so my sweet husband delivered the trailer to my favorite campground and got it all set up.

 

 

It’s so beautiful out there. I enjoy the sound of the creek and the birds, the weather was perfect (what’s a little rain on the last morning?), and the quiet was ideal. It was a time for Jemimah to get out of the driveway, and for me to get away from the noise that is Scrivnerburg, and spend some time with my Savior.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by to see what Jemimah’s been up to! Next week she gets to go on the first family trip of the year!

A favorite campground

Jemimah and I are so eager to get out and go camping! Since it’s not quite time for that yet (at least not for us), I thought I’d share a bit about some of our favorite campgrounds.
I’ve already mentioned Charles Waters Campground here. It is part of the Bass Creek Recreation area. The campground isn’t big, but it’s lovely. There’s a nice little loop near the entrance, and another section of sites that extends to the west. The campground also has a wonderful, large field for kids to play in. It’s a fantastic place for kite flying!

Our favorite campsite is at the end of the road to the west - it give us good access to the field for the kids.

There was a lot of rain on this particular trip, so we created a tent/tarp city.

I think the family was coming back from a tromp through the woods here.

Bass Creek Trail is a nice hiking trail. As my daughter said, the dam and Beaver Pond are just up the trail a ways…around that next curve. (Yeah, right - it’s actually about a 2.5 mile hike up to the pond.) It’s a nice hike, with a lovely reward.

This was early on the trail. So pretty!

The views at the pond are worth the hike.

If you decide to check out Charles Waters Campground, be sure to have protection against bugs - there are mosquitos, ticks, and a bunch of other tiny irritants. There is potable water, and they have vault toilets. They also have a place to dispose of garbage. I think there is one site with electricity - a handicap accessible one - but no electricity isn’t an issue for our family. We generally bring our own firewood - I don’t know if the campground host has firewood or not. If that’s not an option, you can find it at the stores in nearby Stevensville.
It’s really a wonderful place to spend a few days. If you are through the area, let me know what you think of Charles Waters Campground!

Colorful Curtains!

When Jemimah had brown paneling she needed light colored curtains - it was SO dark in there!

But now that she's all white inside she needed COLOR! I have been looking for just the right fabric for months - I wanted something with a retro or 70's look that would be cheerful, and would not cost me my kids' college fund (if they had one).










Thanks to one of my favorite thrift stores, I found exactly what I needed! I found three almost-vintage bedspreads for $3 each. Whoohoo! I don't know how old the fabric really is, but I'm guessing the bedspreads spent the last couple decades on Grandma's 3 twin beds.

I spent a couple days sewy-sew-sew-sewing, and voila!

I love the results. Now I can't wait to find the perfect fabric for the dinette cushions!

Jemimah is done camping for the summer. It's kind of bittersweet - we love getting out and about with her, but we're also happy that she's going to be just hanging out at home. She's going to spend the next several months (probably) being home to one of our grown kiddos, and that is a good thing. We're excited, and Jemimah seems to be quite willing.

Thanks for stopping by! Happy travels!

Catching you up on Jemimah

Jemimah has had a busy spring and summer! After spending the winter in her undies, Jemimah has been getting all fixed up this year! My amazing husband took the skin off and replaced all the rotting wood in the front end. Once that was all done he put the window back in, and we moved on to the inside.

 

Ken and a couple of the boys pulled out the old, nasty carpet and then pulled up the linoleum that was under it. It was cleaned and prepped and then Ken laid peel-and-stick, wood-look flooring. We love how it looks!

A lot of the paneling was peeling or buckled, so eventually it will all be replaced. For now, we've replaced all of the paneling in the front end, and we just started painting the whole thing. That will hide some of the wear until we actually get all the paneling switched out. The kids helped take all the hardware off the drawers and doors for the painting. We only got to start the painting before our first trip of the year, but even that brightened the whole interior up significantly. 

Our first trip of the season was to Charles Waters Campground in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana. It's our favorite close-to-home campground - there's a creek, a hiking trail, an interesting logging road to drive...and plenty of space to do nothing. 

 

A couple of happy campers.

 

Camp napping. Pure awesomeness.

Campfire nachos.

After this fun long weekend we brought Jemimah home again and got back to work. 

I love love love the bright interior!! I know some people don't like the idea of painting the inside of vintage trailers, but I really like it. It's so bright and happy. 

That's catches you up through mid-June. That's enough for today, right? Watch for the late June through July post coming soon. 

Thanks for stopping by! Jemimah appreciates the attention!

Reconstructive Surgery

Jemimah needs some reconstructive surgery (she is 41 years old, after all), so Ken started working on it today. He took the skin off the front and discovered this - 

In case you can't read them, the words say, "REPAIR THIS." But then it's crossed out. Uh...guys who crossed it out - I think you forgot to do something. I think you forgot to REPAIR THIS. 

So did they skip the repair and just put the skin back on? Poor Jemimah.

Here's a quick shot of the beginning of Jemimah's surgery. She's gonna be beautiful again by spring! (I'm not promising which spring.) 

Chin up, Jemimah - Ken will fix you up! And give you a makeover in the process. 

Jemimah goes to Lee Creek Campground

Yay for Jemimah! Scrivnerburg went on the road to spend four days at Lee Creek Campground on Highway 12 out of Lolo, MT. Jemimah had a new gray water setup and a functional new step, so she was all set for the journey. 

We didn't have a campground reservation, so we just checked out each campground as we traveled out toward the Idaho border. We found a site we liked at the last campground inside Montana. 

We were set up and ready for camping in short order. We had a lot of relaxing to do!

It was a pretty rainy trip. It rained off and on the whole time we were there, but we had a great time anyway. 

Gavin's favorite activity was walking the loop. He would walk around and around and around. When we would stop walking with him he would give us a 30 second break and then say, "Way?" In his vocabulary that means, "Can we go that way?"

We also had to switch up some sleeping arrangements. It rained the first night and all the tenters got wet, so most of them slept in vehicles the rest of the time. Dale toughed it out in his tent, but three boys slept in the suburban and Kriss and Kristi slept in Kriss' SUV. Gavin and Caleb slept in the trailer with Ken and I. That was interesting too...

We played Yahtzee, roasted marshmallows, and spent a lot of time just sitting around the fire. Much credit goes to Kriss for showing our kids how to find dry wood when it's raining. (Down at the creek where the big trees grow they could find dry wood under the big trees.)

Oh, and we sorta played Uno. When you play Uno with a young toddler the goal of the game is for the toddler to be the only one with cards - hence the name Uno. 

Caleb and Nathan wanted to try out the solar shower, so we made a little shower stall and let them give it a try. I'm not sure they were any cleaner when they came out than when they went in, but they had fun. We used heated water because we didn't have enough sun to warm the water, and it was a bit cool for a cold shower.

Overall, it was a great trip despite the rain. The last day was even more fun because some friends of ours showed up to camp and our kids were able to play with their kids. Fun times!

Thanks, Jemimah, for another fun trip!