Camping

At the beginning of summer we decided that we really wanted to take advantage of all the fun things to do around Wrightwood. We live in the mountains, so we thought what better way to do that, than to go camping? During the summer we went camping several times to Table Mountain and Blue Ridge. Though Blue Ridge was a very bumpy ride to get to, the campground was great. We went with the Coopers and Willmott's (Seth and Micah and their fam's) and found several great sites right next to each other so all the kids had so much room to play in. We always took our dog Shadow with us and of course, he was in heaven. Somehow, things jut clicked for him once we went camping the first time. Since moving to Wrightwood, Shadow always wants to run away and explore everything. Just around the neighborhood, and he always comes back when he is ready, but what a pain. When we lived in Cedar City, he would always stay close by and was really obedient. Anyway, when we went camping and hiking we would let him off his leash and let him run as much as he wanted. Suddenly he remembered his manners and even now he stays when he is told to. It's nice to be able to leave the gates to the backyard open and not worry about him running off. Shadow expecially loved camping when Seth and Micah brought their dogs so he had someone to play with.

Our first camping trip of the season was crazy. We planned to go over Memorial Day weekend and we knew it would be busy but thought we had things worked out. We were supposed to have a site reserved, but there was a mix-up so we ended up having to search for one at the last minute. We found one at table mountain, which was nice, but it's on top of the mountain, and it was cold and windy. We set up our tent that we had just gotten from a friend. It was supposed to be a nice, fancy one that Jacob traded for several haircuts. It was nice and fancy, other than the huge rips in the top! During the night the wind kept catching the rips and though it didn't rip it more, it was so loud and so cold. The next morning as we were making breakfast it started snowing on us. Since we were already cold and had a hole in our tent, we decided to call it quits and try another time (by the way, the guy who traded the tent to Jacob didn't know about the rips. Apparently it hadn't been used since he loaned it to the Young Women to go camping at the beach-which would also explain the buckets of sand...he traded back. Well, he took the tent back and paid money for the haircuts).

Camping was awesome. It seemed like we never really got to go camping for more than 2 or 3 days straight. We always planned to, but weird things would come up or we would have church activities or something so we would have to run home for a few hours and then come back. It was still fun and relaxing though. There's nothing like sitting around a campfire with family.