Lake Tahoe in the 60's

I don't really remember if it was in the late 60's or early 70's that I took the kids to the mountains for a week with another friend and her kids. Our husbands drove us up on the week end and helped us set up the tents and get camp ready for the week with 12 kids. (five were mine and 7 were her's). Michael was a baby so I guess it was in the 60's.

It was really fun even though we didn't have disposable diapers and we both had kids in diapers. We did have a little camp stove, but we cooked most of our meals over the camp fire. We washed clothes and diapers in a bucket and hung everything on our clothes lines. We took the kids on hikes and played games with them, but mostly they kept each other entertained. We even had time to read a book. It was surprisingly relaxing. We had it all planned so that all the hard work of setting up and taking down camp would be done by our husbands on week ends.

All good plans are subject to change. On Thursday I woke up with a strange foreboding feeling that we needed to get home. I asked Ann, my friend, how she felt and she said she had the same feeling. We acted on our feelings and began to pack the car and break camp as fast as we could. We both felt very urgent about doing this. Before we had finished getting everything we could packed up, and in and on our station wagon, I began to feel sick. By the time we were on our way down the mountain I had a high fever and felt so ill I could hardly drive. Ann was sick also, but the kids were fine. It was a four hour trip and by the time we reached home I was so ill I couldn't move except to groan. I had a very hard flu, the kind where you think you are going to die and afraid you won't.

We were very grateful for the prompting to leave when we did. If we had stayed with 12 kids and both of us were too sick to watch them it would have been disasterous. We had to leave the tents and some other things there as it had taken 2 cars to get us set up in the campground. Larry and Arnold had to go back up and bring the remainder of our things down on the following week-end. We had to get a babysitter for the children while he was gone because I was too sick to take care of them.

It was a wonderful vacation for 6 days. I think we all had a great time. I know I did.