Camping

Our ward had a campout in August and at first I was kind of skeptical about it. I mean we live in Arizona. Hotness is everywhere in my mind and can't be escaped. But Erik talked me into it and I was assured that it wouldn't be too hot and that I would love it. So we got our gear ready but we couldn't leave until Erik got done with work at 4:30. We left at about 5 pm.

We had directions. They were very precise directions. Turn left on such-and-such road and go 9.2 miles then turn right on such-and-such road and go 5.8 miles. You get the picture. It was spot on...until we reached the lake. Now imagine it's 7:30 at night, dark, you're driving around a lake with a ton o' campsites, kids hungry and Jurassic Park just got done and they've been sitting nicely for 2.5 hours so they're starting to not sit nicely, and the directions turn into this:

At the fork go about 2 miles. Look for a radio tower and turn right. We camp at the end near the lake.

That sounds okay but when it's dark outside you can't see the one thing you're looking for: THE RADIO TOWER! We're in a highly forested area where the dumb radio tower looks like a dang tree. We got lost for an hour. We went down all these different roads hoping to see someone that we know. But like I said, it's dark so all we see are tents and campfires. We finally decide to retrace our steps and drive very slowly until we see the elusive radio tower. We find it. Finally. It also happened to be right by the first road we went down when we got there. Like directions said, about 2 miles down the road. The directions failed to mention that we had to go another 3 miles down the road to get to the campsites so we had turned around the first time. Wonderful.

At this point I don't care where the ward is. We found a spot and we said we're done. We pull up and start setting up camp by the light of our headlights. What was funny was 2 other families from the ward saw us from our headlights and camped right next to us because they couldn't find where to go either. So we had our own little campout.

But I have to say that the icing on the cake to this little journey was our neighbors. They were so awesome. You know how great it is to have neighbors getting drunk, playing the weirdest music you have ever heard as loud as possible until 5 am, and swearing up a storm. I kept thinking that they have to pass out eventually but no such luck. I guess I didn't mind the Five For Fighting song they played over and over but I could've done without the weird chanting and hillbilly stuff. But lucky me I got about an hour of sleep before the kids woke up at 6. Don't you love when you can sleep in one day? So do I. I wish I could. :)

We found others from our ward who happened to be just across the road from us. We feel that the spirit guided us there the night before so we could eat the delicious pancake, egg, and bacon breakfast. We spent some time talking then we walked down to the lake to catch some crawdads and get dirty. All were accomplished.

We really did have fun and it was an experience that I think I'll always remember. Here are some pictures of our journey.

The boys really like the picture so I had to throw it in.

Making friends in the morning.


The lake.


Man on a mission.


One of the crawdads they were after. They are so gross.


Dirty, tired, and hungry. I'd call this a successful camping trip.