What is this mother/grandmother's dream come true? It is anytime that I am able to be with my kids and grandkids without outside distractions. For clarification, the great outdoors is not an outside distraction. TV's, telephones, computers, video games, etc., etc. are.
When Sven mentioned that his family would like to take a road trip while they were in the country I took it personally. As in, WOW! All those road trips we took must have had a positive impact! So we made plans to drive to Salt Lake for their last week of vacation, which would include blessing baby William, ordaining Jake a deacon, and lots of other fun family stuff.
When Soren mentioned that he would like to meet us halfway and camp I took that personally as well. As in, even though we didn't do enough camping as a family my love for the outdoors must have rubbed off.
It all came together, thanks most of all to Soren's efforts to haul all the gear and do all the set-up, with the help of Mitchell and Curtis of course!
Around 8 p.m. we pulled into the campsite at McPhee Reservoir, which is just a hop, skip and a jump outside the city of Cortez, Colorado, to find:
The tent set up, beds ready
and dinner cooking!
All these boys were so happy to see each other :)
(I was so surprised at how much Mitchell had grown up since I saw him just a few weeks earlier - facial hair!)
The boys explored while dinner finished cooking.
Kris commented that he didn't like camping. When I reminded him how much fun he used to have camping with his parents, and that they were probably looking down right that minute, grinning from ear to ear, he immediately perked up and seemed to enjoy things a lot more.
Mmmmmmm, good!
Digging in. It was a delicious stew!
This one makes me laugh. As I remember, everybody ate well and seemed to enjoy the food so I'm not sure what they're scowling at!
Who's surprised that Curtis is the one helping get the campfire started???
Just about time to make the s'mores ...... and then came the thunder and lightning and rain! We quickly shut things down and climbed into the tent for a safe, dry night in the woods.
Early morning explorations
After a marvelous camp breakfast Curtis wanted to take Hyuna and me on a nature hike. It turned into a marvelous adventure!
Oooh, Hyuna's new Galaxy camera is amazing!
Remnants of an Anasazi home and tower
It took a whole lot of effort to make this happen, but like Soren said, it would be worth it for the memories. And oh, how grateful I am that we have such wonderful memories (and pictures) to look back on.
Before noon we were loaded up and on the road to SLC.
Nature call!
There was another stop in Green River for some fabulous melons, one for gas and a chance to meet an adorable Blue Heeler puppy, and one because a friendly police officer in Monticello wanted to let me know I'd left the gas cap off (too distracted by the puppy).
What a great group to travel with. In 3 days of travel (the day before we left El Paso we had taken a trip to Carlsbad Caverns, which meant 6 hours in the car, and we spent close to 8 hours each of the other 2 days just rolling down the road), there was not one squabble or complaint! At one point on our way to Colorado Gabe asked me how much longer we would be. When I told him about another hour he said, "Oh, is that all?" Amazing, but then, these are the kids who make 28-hour trips from Korea to the states like old pros.
I sure hope there are lots more road trips and camping trips in the future!
