Any good car camping trip in our family must include a substantial serving of Chicken Apple Sausages cooked over the campfire:


Thank goodness the kids are big enough to get the inside of the tent ready while I work on dinner. Pretty soon I'll be able to sit back and let them do everything!


Yummy!




A little evening cuddling...


And the next morning, junior warriors ready for Training Day:


Psyched for it


We'll hike up this road, and eventually we'll come back scrambling/swimming/floating/bushwacking through the river below:


And so it begins:


Geology sampling along the way... they have to carry whatever they want to bring. The days of stuffing my pockets are winding down:




It takes time to peel them away from it


Phew! We make it to the bridge after a few miles, and time for lunch:


The psych continues!




Now it gets serious real quick! Look out Indiana Jones, we've got some aspiring adventures who will find whatever you didn't:




And now we're going to have to get wet (maybe their first time swimming with shoes on):






Back to some scrambling and 'shwacking:






WOOHOO! We made it from the tributary to the main river!


My daughter shows her adventurer heart (I almost said something, and was ready to dive in if things got heinous):






Synchronize your watches as we enter PHASE 3 (floaties):




But a little more scrambling is unavoidable after a while:


And then swimming is unavoidable:


Beautiful spot, great over-water bouldering opportunities:


After surviving some rapids and fun stuff:


Still psyched!


After an awesome narrow canyon, with birds nests and peaceful S-turns through narrow rock walls, we come out into a wide lagoon with a high rock from which I take this picture:


And the kids scramble on up:


It takes him a while to get his groove on, then he makes fine work of this high dive (I took a video of it, no pics mid-flight):


This was a sketchy slab, should have reigned him in a bit here:


Another view of the beautiful lagoon, and some fingers that took the brunt of a slab slider:


Chillin' (or actually warming up a little):


Time to mosey along:




Got keep up the blood glucose and stay hydrated


And with those bases covered, the psych continues!


And onward we flow, somewhere in the Ventana Wilderness:


Chugga chugga choo choo


Starting to get tired:


But there's a lot of river left. Who knows how far to go?


Time for a little play to take a break from swimming and paddling:


Mini rapids, need to do multiple laps:






With spirits recharged, onward we explore:


Sometimes the going is a challenge with slippery large boulders in shallow water. It's easier to go super-man style on the rafts than to walk through it:





Well that is about the end of the photo documentary, because it's tough to keep things dry on a sparsely planned river adventure. Even with several layers of ziplock bags. So we mourned the loss of the camera, but onward our adventures continued. We had a lot of daylight to work with, but there were points when I thought maybe this idea should have baked a little more, what with waning sun and colder feeling water and an unknown amount of adventurous sections ahead, and no dry clothing or bivie gear. The only way out was down the river. Kids, buck up and let's get it done.

Phew! We made it. Got to wrap up the early evening with some cool ropeswings into the river pool near the take-out spot, and back to camp in time to get more Chicken Apple Sausages and S'mores before the last rays of sunlight died. Somewhere in there both kids got some more high dives and daddy got a super-high dive. It was epic. I even got in a lot of bouldering mileage while trying to bypass sections the kids floated through.

Arroyo Seco is awesome and we'll be back next year!