Pioneer Day weekend we went camping with some friends. We all have kids about the same age and they are all really good friends. Us adults get along pretty darn well too (wink, wink). This camping trip marked the third (see the first & second) for us this summer! Which, with Dave’s school schedule, proved to be more than we were expecting to be able to do. Yeah for camping! We got a bit of a late start, and since it was a holiday weekend we ended up doing quite a bit of searching for a spot.

We ended up somewhere between right-hand fork and Tony Grove at an awesome campground off the right-hand side of the road. My brilliant self didn’t notice the name of the campground. At any rate the spot was perfect! There was plenty of room for all of our tents, a nice fire pit, and a beautiful view. We didn’t have any immediate camping neighbors either. Just a handful of random kids occasionally passing by on four-wheelers or dirt bikes.

Speaking of my brilliant self…
I also didn’t notice that we had less than 1/4 tank of gas when we left either. Any any normal car that would probably have been plenty, but in Dave’s explorer at 1/4 tank you may as well be empty. The needle on his gas gage drops really quickly during the last quarter tank. I noticed our lack of gas on the way up the canyon approx. around right-hand fork. Brilliant, eh? Thankfully we didn’t run out of gas, but we sure were close. The gas gauge light came on just as we were pulling out of the camping spot to leave the next morning… we’d literally moved only 500 feet before it came on. We couldn’t remember if the at 1 gallon remaining, or 2. The Explorer gets about 16 miles to the gallon, and according to the GPS home was 21 miles away – you do the math. Recognizing that the downhill driving to get out of the canyon was in our favor we didn’t stress TOO MUCH, but we were still adequately nervous. I couldn’t help being reminded of our early summer hike to the wind caves and our significant lack of flashlight. I think we must enjoy living on the edge. Why is it that we tend to fly by the seat of our pants so often? Maybe because we’ve always survived? So far anyway.

Anyway, enough talk. On to the pictures!

Dave and his mad tent setting up skills.

Bridget and her rock collection. These rocks spent most of the camping trip occupying the cup holders in the folding chairs.

Michelle & Emily with the little boys.

Our yummy tin foil dinners cooking.

Great Friends with dirty faces (except Pitcher Guy, he face was pretty clean). They sure have fun together.

Dan and Pitcher Guy trying out the tent. PG looks pretty cozy!

Our crazy little family.

Roasting marshmallows with daddy!

Emily with her open-faced s’more. She successfully dropped all three s’mores she made in the dirt. We all laughed pretty hard as it kept happening. Sorry Emily!

The Tatton Family.

Little explorers. It was so fun to watch them play together again! It had been awhile since these three had gotten together.

Thanks friends for the great time camping! We had a great time and can’t wait to do it again!
And, yes, I’ll get you guys copies of the pictures.