May Camping 2

I already posted about when my mom was in town. Well, we also went camping with her when she was in town. We also invited Alex along. It was a fun little camping trip. We just went up the canyon a little bit and found an empty site. It was pretty easy to find an empty site since it was a Wednesday. Dave has Wednesdays off instead of Saturdays like most people, so it is fun to do weekend type things on a week day because it is never crowded. Ok, I confess, my favorite part about camping is setting up the fire. Call me a pyro, but it's fun to build it so that it catches without any "boy scout water." It's a great challenge to get the tinder and kindling and wood all set up just right so that it has enough oxygen but enough fuel to get it going. So, don't be surprised when I am tending the fire in most of these pictures. It's what I do. 

Setting up the teepee style fire.

Joshua helping me with the wood.

Inserting the newspaper. Ok, I know it's a little bit cheating using newspaper instead of leaves, etc., but I allow it.

Dave chopping up a random log at the campsite. He likes to find a log and drag it into the fire...and I mean the whole tree...and scoot it in as it burns off. Not my favorite use of fire, but fire is fire, so I allow it.

Joshua liked to help with the wood. We never let him get too close of course.

Fire!

Me still tending the fire.

Dave still hacking at the log.

Alex and Joshua watching us work our magic.

Ok, it really didn't take that long, there were just many pictures taken during the fire start-up. I even didn't include half of them.

I think now Dave is trying to chop a piece of wood apart that we brought with us. It never split because we didn't have a good chopping surface, but we burned it anyway.

Beauty.

Sitting back, enjoying the fire.

Now this is a funny picture. My mom had on a head lamp and she was eating a hot dog. You can't tell from this picture, but take a look at the next.

Hehe! Nice do!

All better. :)

This is the camping trip where I discovered the deliciousness that is S'mores made with peanut butter cups. Oh so tasty!

Another thing that happened on this camping trip was that we were all just sitting by the fire, when I saw a little shiny thing out in the forest, and for some reason I thought it was the reflector on a backpack, so I said "hello!?" a little bit alarmed. Then there were two shiny things. Yes, they were EYES! Don't worry, it was just a little pack of deer that were grazing their way around our camp site. They tromped through the forest all night long. You'd think deer would be better at walking quietly.