Some of our favorites were:
Nature Trail
Enoch and Kate especially loved walking around the paved trail and reading the signs along the way. It is a beautiful, extensive trail that winds through the Ponderosa pines and Quakies with streams and bridges throughout the trail. Enoch was determined to find some bear tracks (thankfully, he didn't) and everyone took their turn smelling the trees (Ponderosa pines smell like vanilla).
Geocaching
Yahoo! We found it! Our family loves to geocache and it is even better when you find the cache you are searching for. We followed the trail up the mountain and then a bit off-trail to find the small, blue box hiding in the upended roots of a tree (Greg and Kate spotted it first). We left some fishing flys and Enoch took a kitty Pez dispenser.
Playing with Toys & Games
What is camping without some family games? The favorite was Settlers, but we also played Scrabble Slam, Pit and Boochie Ball. Enoch and Kate enjoyed blowing bubbles and splatting their water balloons. The glow sticks were a huge hit every night. Kate loved her necklace and bracelet. The big boys threw they glow sticks in the fire to see what would happen.
Food
We fixed some yummy food while camping. Every morning for breakfast we had pancakes, eggs, bacon and sausage. For lunches we had BLT's, grilled cheeses sandwiches, fruit and chips. Dinners were the best. We had taco salad, tin foil dinners with grilled corn on the cob, and dutch oven calzones. And, of course, lots of snacks. The chocolate topped treats were the first to disappear. Apparently, the squirrels liked them as much as we did.
S'mores
Anyone for gourmet s'mores? We branched out with our s'mores and they were so delicious. We had graham crackers, chocolate marshmallows, strawberry marshmallows, regular marshmallows, chocolate bars, Reeses's pb cups and bananas. We created the banana split s'more - graham cracker, chocolate bar, strawberry marshmallow and banana slices. It was amazing. I think my favorite was the chocolate-dipped strawberry s'more - graham cracker, strawberry marshmallow and chocolate bar. WOW!
Fishing
Our kids had never been fishing before and desperately wanted to go. Lucky for me and Greg, they have uncles and an aunt who like to fish. Nobody caught anything, but I think they had a good time.
Gavin
Gavin loved to play games with everyone. He also spent a fair amount of time playing with the fire - gathering wood, poking sticks at it and learning how to build the best fire from Uncle Jarom. (Sorry, Gavin, I can't get any more picture to load. I'll try again later!)
Enoch
Enoch told me his favorite part was everything about camping. He absolutely loved everything we did. He rode his scooter all over the campground. He alternating between sleeping the trailer and tent and slept fairly well.
Kate
Kate was constantly pointing at her stroller and signing more, more, more! She loved going for walks around the campground and nature trail. I kept wishing Grandpa Randall were there to push her around. They would have had so much fun together. The only time she would nap was in her stroller. On Friday, she took a header off the picnic table and landed on her forehead. She had a giant bump and I think she was in shock for a bit. She snapped out of it and we were constantly pulling her off of the table. She had so much fun and was completely filthy by the end of the week.
While we had so much fun, we had some not so favorites things as well.
Getting There
After buying food, organizing food and packing food I was ready to stay home. It took a lot of work to get ready to go, but I was determined to push through the frustration. Once we got on the road, I was feeling better. Better, that is until we reached the dirt road Google Maps directed us to take. We knew this wasn't the way we had gone before, but we weren't sure how else to get there, so we took the road thinking it was only unpaved for a few miles before turning off onto a paved road. After 20 miles and 2 hours later on the glorified ATV trail, it ended! Stopped, finished, ended. Are you kidding me?! We could see on the GPS that we were three miles from our campground, but we couldn't get there! Absolute Frustration! It was like a surreal, bad dream. We turned around in a small meadow and headed back to civilization. We finally got there six hours after starting out (it should have taken us three). We were happy and relieved to arrive at Yellow Pine.
Coming Home
We thought we already had our driving adventures and that the ride home would be smooth sailing. A bit after leaving the campground, Greg noticed the battery indicator was very low and dropping quickly. We made it to Heber before the battery quit. We charged it up with the batteries from the trailer and it held that charge for 3 minutes. We pulled over into a Les Schwab parking lot and the boys went in search of a battery. Being a Sunday in Heber, not a store was open. Finally, we called Grandpa Dee and he rescued us with a new battery and followed us home. It only took us 5 hours to get home, so I guess that was improvement. Greg replaced the alternator today and we are hoping we can return the trailer to Fairview without anymore more problems.
Aside from the coming and going, our family had a wonderful time and maybe in a few years I'll have the energy to go back again!
5 comments:
What a fun post. It was a lot of fun!! Bummer for your family on getting there and coming home. But we made a lot of fun memories and it was fun to spend so much time with your kids. Thanks for going with us
I loved the pictures (I downloaded some to print). We hated thinking about all the challenges you had. Come with us next year (1) we know how to get there ;-)(2) I will do the food (3) we love pushing little girls in the stroller (4) I love playing Settlers (5) I can fish (6)we love geocaching (7) we love Yellow Pine (8) we can solve the trailer and Suburban problems (7) we love you!
Wow, what an adventure! My granddad was from a tiny tiny town north of Duschesne (called Altonah), and he loved camping and hiking up there in the high Uintas. We used to go either to Moon Lake (if we were feeling civilized) or to Swift Creek Reservoir (less civilized) and go camping for 4 or 5 days at a time. It was so fun! Swift Creek was fun -- absolute total boonies. I haven't been there in a million years, but I imagine the road to get there is better than it used to be. for a long time the native Americans wouldn't let the road be paved (it's on the reservation)....so for 20+ miles we'd drive on absolute washboard dirt road to get there. But it was always beautiful. Anyways. Glad you had a fun trip!
Well what an adventure, I looked up the Google map and it does show getting there, but have not heard anybody going that way. That is not a fun thing to lug a trailer around to some place you don't want to be . Sorry about the alternator, poor old suburban has just not been used enough. We have probably set to high a standard on the food and will have to go simpler. Sounds you did great Tresa. If at all possible we will plan to go next year and all you need to bring is the grand kids. HOPE SOMETHINGS WERE A HAPPY TIME--LOVE DAD AND GRANDPA
I admit it made me a little sad to look at the pictures. My favorite picture was the red cups hanging on the clothesline. Totally Randall family camping. The best was when you filled it up and you hadn't noticed a bug had been in there from before. Looks like fun, I bet the kids loved it!
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