Steve has been wanting to go camping since the end of January. I have been wanting to go camping since mid February (because I'm a tad bit more sensical that way-it was in the single digits here most of January). When the camping fever hit me though, it hit me hard! I have had this burning desire to forgo the things of the world that keep me moving at light speed most days, and sit by a campfire and just be, with my family all around me. Unfortunately in mid February when I was hit with the camping bug, we had something on our calendar every weekend all the way through Memorial Day weekend. Steve and I decided that no matter what came up, when May 23rd rolled around, we were packin' up and getting the heck outta Dodge. I've just been biding my time since then. Steve did some research and found a lovely National Park that we have never been to: Great Basin National Park.
Finally the day came! Life was pretty hectic up to the very moment we sat in the truck and drove away. When we told our children on Thursday that they were going to get to skip school on Friday so we could get away early, they freaked out. But not in the way I was expecting. All four of them wanted to go to school??? Steve and I couldn't quite make sense of that one. Zac is the only one who had a valid reason for wanting to attend school that Friday (I can't believe I even just typed that sentence). He is on an A/B day schedule at school and Friday would be his last real day in Machine and Art and he had projects that needed to be finished and could only be finished in the actual classroom. We relented and let Zac go to his first and second period classes. He went to school early enough that by the time we were loaded up and ready to go, so was he. We forced the poor girls to stay home from school and help us load up.
When we got there we found a lovely campsite that was just perfect for our family. We don't like to camp near people and our nearest neighbors were a mile away in either direction. It was a beautiful campsite with a lot of trees and a lovely bubbling brook in the back half. That night for dinner, we had BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, beans and corn on the cob that we roasted over the fire for the first time ever. We all agreed that that was the absolute best way to eat corn and that from here on out, we would forevermore roast our corn over a campfire before consumption. Zac is the best marshmallow roaster ever in the whole history of marshmallow roasting. He seriously spent a full 15 minutes roasting this mallow to perfection. He definitely does not inherit that kind of patience from me.
Our family's most favorite thing to roast over a campfire is Starbursts. Oh yes, quite the delightful treat. The girls have turned it into an art form as you can see in the next two pictures.
On Saturday we set out for a beautiful hike that was to be the grand event of the whole trip. We would be hiking the Alpine Lakes Loop Trail. A lovely little hike that would take us not by one, but by two beautiful pristine mountain lakes. We took the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive to get to the trail. The higher up we went on the mountain, the colder it became. We stopped at a scenic overlook and the girls couldn't resist the urge to get a little planking in.
When we arrived at the general vicinity of the trail head, we had a bit of trouble locating it. Mostly because it was COVERED IN SNOW! What??? No one told us it would be like that!
Emily decided she wanted a pet squirrel and so she tried to camouflage herself as a tree in order to attract one. I tried to tell her that even if by a long shot her plan worked, did she really want a squirrel jumping onto a tree branch in her face? But in typical Emily fashion, I don't even think she heard me talking to her. Zac, our resident winter enthusiast was in heaven the entire time.
Aubrey lost a shoe deep in the bottom of a snow drift.
Addy found a few places where the snow was a little too deep for her.
Despite the conditions, it was absolutely gorgeous. The pictures just don't do it justice. I felt like I had just walked into an absolute winter wonderland. It made me crave Christmas right there in the middle of May. This was an awesome picture with Wheeler Peak in the background but some people were not cooperating and by the time everyone was in place the Peak was covered with clouds (it did rain on us a tad).
We did our best, but there came a point when :
A) We were just too darn cold and wet
and
B) There was just too much snow and we could not find the trail
So we decided to start heading back. Zac, who was having a blast, wanted to go on. I'm sure he would have done just fine if he had. But instead he carried his little sister out since her feet were frostbitten by that point.
We found a picnic area and stopped for lunch. The sun came out and it was lovely. And bonus: there was leftover firewood in the fire pit. So we got a warm and toasty fire going.
It took some convincing, but we finally got Addy to give us her soaking wet jeans so we could hang them out to dry.
I'm not gonna lie. I was huffing and puffing my way along on the hike.
This might have something to do with it. The elevation where we live is a measly 4,304 ft.
Next stop? Some caves featuring Fremont Indian pictographs.
And some more recent carvings: circa 1906
Twiners!
We decided to take an adventurous route back to camp.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood....and we totally took the wrong one! That's OK though, we finally found our way home. And as soon as we got back onto the main road, we looked back and saw a sign stating "Authorized Vehicles Only". All I'm sayin' is, there was no sign like that back where we started!
Let's play Frisbee:A) Right over the top of mom's headB) Right over the raging fireC) All of the above
Since they chose C) All of the above, and I was not OK with that, I made them take it out to the road. This turned out to be the perfect place to play and many many more games of Frisbee were played here over the next few days. Zac might not have inherited his marshmallow roasting patience from me, but there are some things he did receive from my gene pool.
Hobo dinners and banana boats for dinner that night!
This was my absolute most favorite part of the whole trip. It was what I had been craving for months. A roaring campfire (courtesy of Emily) and no TV, no computers, no iPods, no cell phones, no appointments, no meetings, no laundry to fold - no where to be but present. And I was surrounded by my most favorite people in the whole wide world. I was in Heaven!
That night we did get all snugly in the camper and watched Walter Mitty. Actually Steve and Zac watched Walter Mitty. The rest of us couldn't stay awake that long.
Days 3&4 coming soon to a blog near you!
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