We all needed to sleep in but Bean had other plans for us in the morning. She climbed out of bed early and started talking and talking and talking. Heath tried to find something for her to do but the mosquitoes were bad outside and everywhere else in the house, everyone could hear her and we all ended up getting up.
I fried up a bunch of eggs and mixed in some turkey, pepperoni and leftover brauts.
The kids played and we took our time getting going and eventually took the boats over the lake and then started driving into McCarthy. It was probably a 45 minute gravel road drive to a parking lot beside a river.
From there we were on foot the rest of the way.
There was a foot bridge that 4 wheelers could pass and down the river a ways there was a bridge. Stephanie’s dad took a few kids on a 4 wheeler and the rest of us started walking to town.
We hoped to get there for the parade but missed it. Town was a dusty sunny gravel street full of people.
We joined in the festivities right away and had a few beers during a slow bike race, pie eating contest and the tug of war.
Peanut and Heath tried the egg toss, plus we had ice cream and a few drinks in the saloon.
We wondered around town and I think everyone had a lot of fun.
The kids got hungry and Adam borrowed his brother’s car. For the public there is only a foot bridge into McCarthy but on some private land there is a larger bridge. The owner charges $300 a year to use it. We all piled into a big old Lincoln and went even farther from civilization to the Kennicott mines.
Our first priority was food so we hit up the pizza buss and got our order in.
Then we looked around some and took pictures and had a beer.
The pizza was great and after eating the kids felt much better.
We explored around the old mining town on our own some and Bean and I went toward the giant old wood buildings.
Heath shopped for jewelry some then saw us and joined in too.
It was a warm day and we all made our way to a lodge that had a shaded playground and sold beer. It was perfect.
We hung out and talked and let the kids play a while.
Then we took the car back to the foot bridge and dropped everyone off and returned it.
We packed up our cars and started our way back. Everyone was thirsty on the way back so we stopped at a mountain stream and filled up our water bottles and any other containers we could find. The ice cold water was awesome and the kids treated it like some magic potion.
Once home we were all pretty beat, we cooked quick hot dogs for the kids and had them all rinse off the dust in the shower real quick. I wanted a lake bath but the bugs were pretty bad and there was a lot to do before bed. We fed the kids hot dogs and some other quick stuff and then had them get there blankies and crowd in around a movie on my laptop.
The adults had some margaritas and salsa and any hot dogs the kids didn’t eat then Adam made more popcorn. We were pretty worn out too and put the kids to bed then laid around the family room swapping vacation stories until late in the night.