What a nice weekend camping!

The BSU and I did go camping this weekend and what a terrific time we had doing just about nothing. We left Thursday morning and found the first open for the season campground, Shady Dell, in the Wasatch National Forest. The campground had really just opened up that day and we had the pick of the camp spots.

Here's a picture of our idea of good camping- the camper's up, the dog is nearby and there's no place to go-

We were camped in a beautiful field of wildflowers-


and just a few yards away from a very busy, gurgling Provo River.


On the last day we had a visitor at our campsite-


The spouse insisted on a photo of this chubby scribe and our patient dog, Sandy,


We did have a bit of excitement on Friday while we were out exploring and driving around. We headed up a dirt road that supposedly had a lake at the top but we had to stop before reaching the lake because the road was blocked by a snowdrift. When I tried to back the truck to make a 3-point turn, I of course dropped a rear tire into the muddy, sandy ditch! So the truck was stuck, sideways, on a one lane dirt road, 3 miles off the highway! We hiked down for about half the distance, then met up with a group of 2 young couples that were heading up the road hoping to fish in the yet unseen lake. They gave us a lift back down to the campground where we dropped the dog and picked up an ATV ramp from the camp host's trailer. Then they ran us back up to the truck and helped me get it extricated. It took a bit of digging and jacking and stuffing of rocks under the tire before we could finally get it high enough to make effective use of that alloy ramp. That effort got the truck most of the way out of the ditch but we still couldn't get it clear out. We finally used a strap and the other guy's Suburban to pull the truck's back end around and get it pointing parallel to the road instead of across it. Then, finally, we were both able to back down to a wide enough spot where 3-point turns could be managed safely. We didn't get any pictures of that bit of excitement though, sorry.

After that excitement we spent most of our time reading and resting in the shade. I read two books just for fun, Hot Rod: Resurrection of a Legend by Brock Yates and Broken Prey by John Sandford.

So we had a really nice couple of days resting, reading, listening to the songbirds and the gurgle of the river. We came home Saturday afternoon, put things away, showered and crashed on the couch for the evening and an early bedtime.

Today has been an entirely different story, so it deserves its own post...