CHN Spring Camp Out ’08
by Becky Maxwell

Lytle Creek, Applewhite Campground San Bernardino National Forest
Spring Campout time!

We are doing it differently this time, no signing up!

We are going camping at Lytle Creek, Applewhite Campgrounds May 15,16,17, and 18. This is a no reserve campground so you arrive and pick your spot, go up to the Campground Host or the Kiosk and pay for your site. You can pay daily or for several days if you want. You are in charge of your own site. Stay longer or stay shorter, it’s up to you! If you want your friends camping next to you consider getting a “double site”. There is plenty of room for tents and popups.

There are restrooms with flush toilets but no showers. Each site has a grill and or pits, a picnic table, and there are several water faucets easily available. No showers, no electricity, no hookups of any kind. The no showers part is the “adventure” IMO.

Single unit camp is limited to 8 people and 1 vehicle. Single Unit cost is $10/night. A single additional vehicle is $3.00

A double Unit camp is limited to 16 people and 2 vehicles. Double unit cost is $15/night. A third and fourth vehicle is allowed at an additional cost of $3.00 per vehicle.

It’s very important that we keep the vehicles on the paved roads and parking areas.

We will be in Glenn Loop, as you enter the campgrounds turn right and look for your site. Park then pay. Payment is at a self-serve station at the entrance to the campground. Check out time is 2 PM the following day. You can walk into the Applewhite Picnic Area for day use purposes. That’s across the street and down a bit from the campgrounds and has the creek running through it. That’s where we took the kids for panning for gold and just playing in the creek a few years ago. It’s completely fenced in now.

Adventure Passes are not needed for the campgrounds but are needed if you park your car anywhere else in Lytle Creek Canyon. Adventure Passes cost $5/day.

If you don’t want to camp come visit for a day! CHN membership meeting on Friday in the picnic area by the creek. Those staying in the campgrounds have free parking at Applewhite Picnic Grounds but those coming up for the meeting will need to get an “Adventure Pass” from the Ranger Station they pass on the way up Lytle Creek Road. The pass is $5. The kids can play in the water while we sit in chairs under the trees. Come to the meeting and bring a pie tin so your kids can get wet and pan for gold. Lytle Creek was one of the places gold was found by panning. And it’s fun to splash, wade, or if it’s deep enough ride a float on. We never know what the water level will be until we get there. It is spring fed water so it ‘s cold all year round. If we have more rain it might be really a creek, but if weather continues like this we’ll be lucky to have a trickle.

There are several hikes close to the campgrounds that we’ll discuss on the new Spring Campout List. To get on the list email Becky. The list is already set up and ready to go.

Directions to get there: Take I-15 to Sierra Avenue exit and go 5 miles north on Lytle Creek Road. (that’s toward the mountains, away from Fontana). There will be more campouts coming soon.

Today was like the proof in the pudding day for me. All these years you raise your kid and you wonder if you are doing them right or totally messing up their head and future. Well, after all these years of homeschooling ... Unschooling is the term for the form we used ... today was the day. Our daughter graduated six months early from High School education and went down today for her placement testing to get in at the community college. As I sat there waiting and waiting and waiting, wondering how she was going to come out that door, all the years of everyone that didn't think Homeschooling worked ... especially Unschooling ... went flashing through my head. Every time my husband said to me that she wasn't "studying" enough, or she wasn't doing enough "Book Work" and on and on. All the times my parents and his lifted that eye brow, shook their head or questioned this whole concept of "Homeschooling." All your friends that questioned if I was sure this worked and what if it didn't. All of it flashing through my head and thinking, "If she does so bad, could they not allow her in? What if she does so bad she doesn't even want to try again? What if........" Was I going to hear for the rest of my life from everyone, "I told you so!" You are so concerned about how she's going to do and if you did the right thing. Is she going to do good or is it going to be the worst day of her life.

She had tried to enroll months back ... as a continuous education student and didn't get in ... that math she hates so much. The testing is different if you are still in High School. She spent more time working on the math and studying history and was now ready to go for it. So, now that she's not in High School anymore, she wanted to go down and get enrolled. I asked if she was ready and if she'd studied the math more and she said she was ready to go.

I feared the worst for the day as I am one that just HATES ... Yes, CAPITAL LETTERS ... the bureaucratic system and all the red tape they create. We are not on campus 30 min. and I'm mad. We go to Admissions and hand over her transcripts and they inform us that they can't take them. I ask, "Why?" and I'm told because it is not in a sealed envelope. My next response is, "What?" I'm told that all transcripts must be in a sealed envelope. I say to the women, "Wait, I could walk outside this door, stick this (holding up the transcript) paper that she needs to get enrolled into an envelope, seal it and come back in and then you'd be able to enroll her?" She says, "No. The transcripts must be in a sealed envelope with the schools seal on it. I said, "And then what? I'm going to come back in here with this same piece of paper in a NOW, SEALED envelope and you are going to pick up that letter opener, open the envelope, pull out this VERY SAME piece of paper (holding it up again) and enroll her. You can't be serious!" That's the rules!!! I'm mad! I'm trying to talk Crystal into dumping this bureaucratic, red tape, piece of junk system they have for a good trade school. Crystal's telling me to calm down, that she's got to take her test and she doesn't want to be all stressed out before hand. Me, I've got to get as far away from this "system" (if that's what it can be called) and let off steam. She goes over to take her placement testing.

Well, finally she comes out and with a Big Smile on her face. I take a deep breathe and smile back ... this is a good sign. She runs over and says, "Mom ... I can take honors classes. I got the top score for English and moved up in my math score. With the scores I got, I could use these classes to transfer to a University. I was SO, SO proud of her. I told her so, hugged her and then cried! She's doing the, "Mom, do NOT cry! Not here!" I told her I was crying for her and for myself ... I wasn't wrong to have homeschooled her (unschooled her). She did JUST FINE!!! We then went back to Admissions and got her signed up for her orientation at 4:30 pm.

At orientation, the counselor tells her with the scores she got, she could take any class she wanted. He also told her that he wouldn't take the honors classes, unless she was SURE she would pull an "A." That she could take the regular English or math classes, get an "A" and be just as good leaving the college. Then we found out that you had to be "Full Time" to take honors classes. We had agreed a few months back that she would NOT take a full load. That since we had homeschooled, she should start out small, take a few classes, get the feel of the campus, of going to school/college and then get down to the business of really learning the heavy duty stuff. So, she's doing whatever it is she has to do online tomorrow and I called the Private Homeschool Service we used to let them know I needed an envelope with the schools seal on it so I could get her enrolled. They agreed to send it out in the mail to us today. We should get it in a day or so and then the girl is a college student! WOW! She Did It!!! Does this mean I get to rest now? It works ... Homeschooling and Unschooling works!!! We watched others and still wondered if it was going to work for us. The rest is now up to her ... just like all of her education up to this point has been ... her choice, her desire, her want, her drive to get it done and get where she wants to be. She's shown us in the past that if she wants something, she can and will do it. Now all these doors are open to her. What a great family we have and what a journey it has been!!!

Since "Dad" wasn't here, she called him. He was jazzed to hear how well she had done. He sent me a text message saying, "You did a great job with Crystal. I love you!" That made my day and washed away all my other "issues" with the day. I told her I'd treat her to lunch anywhere she wanted to go. She picked The Cheese Cake Factory. We pigged out there and then went to her doctors appointment and then over to orientation. Now we are home, still jazzed and feeling so much better to have that behind us. I'm Very proud of that girl!!! And then I even learned how to text message over my cell phone ... to text my husband back. I'd never done that before.

Cindy Ferry