Camping in Cleveland Nat'l Forest

Last weekend M&M took the youth from our church on a camping trip in the Cleveland Nat'l Forest. I protested the whole thing from the beginning because Mike was going to the boat that week and even though he told me he would be back on Wed. I somehow doubted that. It's the military were dealing with here; they always try and ruin the best-laid plans of mice and men. Sure enough I organized the whole thing and found out on Thursday afternoon that, at best, he would be coming into port around noon on Friday.
Well, the kids and I left at 8:00 Friday morning according to plans. It was a tight fight packing all that gear and 10 people into two vehicles. Everyone had to suck it in while doors were being closed. We set up a nice campsite and cooked some hot dogs for lunch before setting out on a 4-mile hike through a hot and dry meadow. Everyone was baking like a toasted cheese-it. On the return hike we looked over our shoulder to see huge plumes of black smoke not that far off. It scared me a little and I was wondering if we should break into a run, get to the campsite, pack up and leave. Fortunately the native Californians were a lot calmer. It turned out that the fire was 20 miles away (not that far really) and under control. Apparently a car had caught on fire by the roadside and the flames spread into the field next to it. After a few rounds of "Would you Rather..." Mike finally arrived on site. Everyone cheered and ran to help him unload and set up. The rest of our evening was spent cooking dinner, playing games and stargazing. Oh, there was one other thing. Upon completion of stargazing it was deemed necessary that we sneak back to camp military style and scare the Assoc. Pastor and Justin. So, divided into two fire teams we silently (pretty impressive for a bunch of teens) back to camp. We communicated solely by hand signals and spent a lot of time lying face down on the pavement but in the end everyone had a blast even if Nate was more annoyed than scared. Next day due to the heat we all piled into the cars and drove home and spent the afternoon together at the beach. What a camping trip!