Camping at Lake Mead

Ammon has been begging us to go camping all summer but we kept telling him it was too hot to go. Well, he is all of a sudden way into fishing and really wanted to go. We told him we'd go fishing and camping for Labor Day weekend. We left Friday afternoon and drove out to Stewart's Point, our favorite place to go at Lake Mead. It is quite a ways away, but it is a decent beach and is not crowded. We found a nice little bay to set up our camp. It was soooooo hot! We couldn't wait to get in the water, but we had to set up the tent and build a fire to cook dinner on first. We had hot dogs and yummy fruit salad. Anna loved it. We set up our new tent, yeah! We have all been trying to squish into our old two-man tent for too long. So we upgraded to a six-person! Wow, it felt so huge. I also bought an air mattress, I haven't loved sleeping on the hard ground. Well, by the time we took care of all the necessities it was dark! We decided to still swim. Well, we went to walk out into the water and sank into the mud mid-thigh high, seriously! It made for a pretty hilarious event while holding the baby and it being dark and all. I opted to just stay out after that. Lily, Anna, and I just played on the beach out of the crazy sinking mud. Adam and Ammon walked to the edge of the bay and got in where it was rocky so they wouldn't sink. It was pretty fun, but I was honestly at little scared at the idea of Ammon being out in the water in the pitch black! Adam was right with him though. There is a certain peace that comes from being able to see someone. I feel like I loose an element of control and security when I can't see. Anyway, all went well, and they had a good time swimming.
Anna had thrown all her leftover food onto the floor so there were a crazy amount of bugs and spiders by the cooler where she ate. It was pretty gross. Also, I almost stepped into a black widow's web, with the black widow in the middle of it! Creepy! I like camping, but I hate when it is dark, unless I am in my tent safe and sound, well at least I feel like I am safer. We drenched ourselves in bug spray and sprayed all around the door of the tent too. There were so many bugs and spiders and we did not want them in our tent! So we were all dry and ready for bed. It was so hot I could not sleep and Anna couldn't go to sleep because she wasn't in her crib. She just wanted to play, but she was exhausted. She kept climbing all over the place and she was laughing and then crying, poor thing. She finally feel asleep at the bottom of the tent. So, everyone was asleep but me. I really thought I was going to go crazy because I was so hot. I know I keep saying that, but I don't know if you realize how crazy hot it was! I finally got out of the tent and took a small blanket and some rags down to the lake to get them wet. I was afraid of sinking into the mud again so I got as far as I could and then waited for the waves to wash up far enough that I could dip my rags. It worked, but they were full of sand. I didn't care though. A little sand was better than not having something wet to put on me. I put a rag on each of the kids because they were so sweaty, and then I used the small blanket for me. I was finally able to fall asleep. It is amazing how much a little water helps to cool you down. Poor Anna woke up sometime in the middle of the night and played and cried again. It was a long night! We woke up the to the wind blowing quite hard. We probably got up at 5:45. The sun wasn't up yet, but it was pretty light. It was super windy. You would have thought you were at the ocean with the size of the waves. It was insane! Ammon wanted to go fishing again, so we walked out to the point of the bay. It was even windier there. It was too windy to catch any fish. We had fun trying though. It was great to watch the sun come up and enjoy the beautiful morning. We were the only people around. I loved it.
We packed everything up and then walked over to our favorite point. It is rocky, but makes an awesome beach for swimming and playing. We swam, fished, played, ate lunch and had a blast! Other people started coming out and a few boats eventually came too. The wind had died down and wasn't as crazy as earlier in the morning. It was still windy and the kids had fun with the waves, but it wasn't out of control. We had a great time. Lake Mead is beautiful and camping is so much fun! I would suggest though that if you are going to camp at Lake Mead when the temperatures are over 100 that you only do so if you have air conditioning! Stay in the mountains in the summer if you will use a tent!