ERNC - Rapids Camp Yurt

This week Layne took a couple of days off for us to do a little camping. We decided to rent the Rapids Camp Yurt from the Eagle River Nature Center and loaded our backs and our buggy for the trip. After fueling up at the local pizza joint, at which Grayson continually bounced up and down and said "pizza," we began our two mile hike to the yurt. The hike wasn't too bad except the last 1/4 mile or so which was nearly inpassable for the buggy because it was laden with roots and rocks. I thought Layne was going to kill me. He is the most patient person I know. We knew the hike was well worth it when we arrived at our yurt (cross between a tent and a cabin) and saw the view. The yurt was equipped with a wood stove, wood shed, fire circle, wonderfully smelling latrine and no cell phone coverage. It was a great get away and a chance to focus on the family. We learned that Landon has a fear of many bugs as he repeatably stopped, covered his ears, and said "Are there any bugs on my back?" Grayson also developed his vocabulary learning pinecone and cottonwood. He also kept us up late both nights. The first night he was concerned about Landon and Daddy on the top bunk: "Daddy go up. Landon go up. Daddy fall down? Landon fall down?" The next night he noticed text on Mommy's sweatshirt and encouraged by laughter from Daddy and Landon repeatably gave us his rendition of the ABCs: "A, B, L, O, JAY!" The "J" being a long drawn out crescendo. During the day we entertained ourselves with hikes and geocaching. We highly recommed the climb to the top of the Dew Mound and the view from Echo Bend if you get the urge to get hiking. Both hikes are doable with kiddos in backpacks. Strollers are not recommended past Four Corners (about 1 mile from nature center). We also learned no matter how close an eye you keep on your children they always need to be at arms length. Grayson tested this theory by testing the water in Eagle River. We are blessed that he is ok. We saw few other people on our hikes and very few animals other than squirrels. We met Rudy from Belgium who has spent the last 18 years photographing bears on Kodiak. We did see bear sign, but no bears. The coolest animal I saw was a lynx who came to visit while I was at the one place you would be least likely to take your camera...ie the latrine.