Three years ago, my family and I went to a cabin in the Shenandoah Valley. My sisters and I spent most of the time playing in the creek. My dad cooked on a wood stove, and there was a forest fire nearby.
Elissa, Laura, and I were delighted to find a creek right in front of our cabin. We refrigerated water and juice in it. When daddy burned his hand on the stove, he used the creek like ice. But the best part about the creek were the stones at the bottom. They were multicolored for some reason, and when the sun caught them just right, they looked like stained glass.
My dad loved mastering the art of cooking on a wood stove. There was no way to control the temperature precisely. You could only make it hotter by adding more wood. To lower the temperature, all you had to do was leave the fire alone. Now I know why the pioneer women had to spend all day in the kitchen. Daddy tried to chop wood for the stove fire, but he wasn't strong enough. So, he made us scrounge for wood to feed the hungry flames.
We were very worried about the forest fire. It came within a half mile of us, and we could see the smoke rising above the treetops when we went hiking on a nearby mountain. When we got back to the cabin, we could smell it. A park ranger came and interrogated us about the fire because it had been set off illegally and on purpose by some unknown party. We left right after that so I don't know what happened.
My favorite part about our adventure was the creek. The stones were so beautiful that I took a picture, and my sisters and I had a ton of fun playing in it. I think our trip to the Shenandoah Valley was a success, don't you?