Hello Family,
I’ve got quite the story to tell so I’ll try and not make a book
out of this email! Haaa!
With preparations underway during the week, last week, I was ready
to go by Friday! Nick called as he was leaving Tooele with his truck
pulling the 5th wheel, and the flatbed trailer with the Rhino and
two 4-wheelers! He was one long rig! David & Lindsay were on
their way from Logan with his 4-wheeler in his truck and his friend Jeremy,
Cory and baby in their truck. I left work at 1:45pm and headed home
to pack up the car and I met up with the convoy at the Park City turnoff to
Kamas. Perfect timing too! It happen to be that a torrential
rainstorm was passing through! Nicks double pull was pretty stressful on
his truck, but he made it up Parley’s canyon ok. We headed for State Rd.
35, to the south of Kamas, but found there were restrictions on 4-wheelers
there. Problem was, Nicks rig is impossible to back up a double pull, so
we unhooked the Rhino trailer and hooked it up to David’s truck. We
headed for the State Highway 150 directly east of Kamas and hunted down a great
camping spot at Shingle Creek Campground with a table, fire pit and potty quite
close! We camped near here last fall during the Labor Day weekend.
Luckily, a 4-wheeler trail lead directly out of the campground up the Iron Mine
Mountain range.
Friday night Nick & Michelle made dinner of hamburgers and the
fixings! It was delicious! Thankfully it stopped raining, so David
& Lindsay and Jeremy and Cory put up their tents. We had a nice camp
fire going with the help of Jeremy adding carburetor cleaner to the fire, but
the temperature quickly dropped. After some time around the fire, we all
retired to bed. I was so grateful that I could sleep in the trailer with
Nicks family. It has a ‘slide out’ which makes it very roomy. The
children settled down to bed very well in the trailer as opposed to last fall
in a tent.
Saturday morning a lite rain started, but we made breakfast with
the Camp Chef propane cooker and used the Dutch ovens. Jeremy had to get
on his way back to Logan, so after he got his gear together, we loaded up in
the Rhino and 4-wheelers and went for a ride. Lindsay wasn’t feeling well
so she rested in the trailer as it had started to rain again. It was a
fun adventure with rocks, hill climbs, and awesome mud puddles! I
absolutely love being out in the fresh air, the smell of pine and the beautiful
country side. I also love using the skills of getting up and around the
rocks and inclines. Thrilling!! The photos I’ll attach will speak
more of the fun than my words can! It stopped raining at a certain point
and the clouds parted to take great pictures. There was one part of the
trail that had a huge mound of gravel type dirt and what looked like a hole in
the hillside that could have been a mine. There was way more dirt than
the wash out (could have been blasted out) of the mine, so we were all
perplexed on where the mound came from. Nick had to drive up the mound
backward to get to the top, which the photos do not show it’s steepness.
We arrived back to see Lindsay was rested and soon after Michael, Adrienne and
Layla arrived. We called them at the top of the mountain to get service
and told them where we were. Michael & Adrienne took the 4wheeler on
a short ride and after a while, Layla really liked it! The children were so
cute together finding bugs and smashing them! Dinner tonight was on me
and all helped making Hawaiian BBQ chicken in one Dutch oven, and
bacon-onion-potatoes in the other. I brought supplies for S’mores
too. Hayden really wanted to hold the roasting stick but the hot dog or
marshmallow kept getting burned up or dirty. Finally, he just ate them
unroasted. David had gone to Kamas in the evening but forgot to get dice
that Mike requested. So as he’s good at innovation, David cut 4 square
cubes from a small log and put dots on them for dice! They turned out
awesome! As M&A were only staying one night, they bunked in the
trailer after Nicks kids went to sleep.
Sunday morning Mike made breakfast burritos and went on another
short 4wheeler ride. He got Layla to be happy about it and then Hayden
and Cambree wanted a short ride too. Lindsay and I took them this
time. The sky was clear of clouds and the day promised to be pleasantly
warm. Layla was a very good girl and squealed when anyone said
‘BUG!” One time she was doing laps on the flatbed trailer and flipped off
the end! She wasn’t hurt good thing. I appreciated so much Mike and
Adrienne’s effort to come camping! They had to leave after noon sometime
to return to Tooele, then prepare to head back to Idaho to pick up Gavin.
He’s burned a lot of rubber & gas with his trips back & forth, but
having Gavin in his home is the grand prize! Funny moment here as Mike
was heading out of the campground and onto the highway, Nick remembered that
Mike had the 4-wheeler registration tag with him! So Nick leaped across a
stream, over logs and grass and up an incline to wave down Mike before he got
too far! It was a sight to see….but dang, I didn’t get a picture of
it!
The day before, when we were almost back to camp, Nick heard an
odd sound from the Rhino and found the rear CV had broken and so he took apart
the rear end, and made it so it could drive as a 2 wheel drive. It had a
rough time on inclines with front wheel drive, but we took it for a ride anyway
on Sunday afternoon. There is an odd vibration that David and Nick were
trying to figure out. We got a way up the trail and decided rather than
torment the Rhino further, we’d take it back to camp. Didn’t need it
breaking altogether away from tools and such. Nick saw a cattle bridge
and took the Rhino up the bridge as he figured he was narrow enough. It
was, but a wheel got caught to the right and it was some fun pictures to see
the boys pushing it past the post! I was glad to have Lindsay on this
ride to see the beautiful country. At one point we stopped and got the
kids out of their helmets. Nick sat down on the side of the road and
quickly Hayden toddled over and sat by Nick. It was the classic….Like
Father, Like Son. The same happened when Nick started the Rhino and
Hayden ran over from the fire pit, attracted to the motor sound and wanted in
the vehicle! The funniest part was going through the mud patches on the
trail and the mud splatter that landed on everyone, most funny was on the
kids! Or it could have been their reaction to it that was funny.
LOL Later we all took a 20 mile drive up the canyon in our cars and
headed for Bald Mtn. and Mirror Lake which summits at 10,800 feet. The
snow pack was still at 5-6 feet high and while we stopped, David made a body slam
figure in the snow bank. It was pretty funny. The vista at Bald
Mountain was spectacular.
Sunday night was David & Lindsay’s dinner assignment and they
did a great job with baked potatoes and cheese and sausage on roasting sticks
with biscuits wrapped around the sausage and roasted in the fire. Great
idea! For dessert we made the Peach Cobbler that turned out more like
pudding, but it tasted fabulous! Nick had an extension cord that was
wasted, so he put it in the fire to melt. Wow…it was a light show of many
colors! We were glad it was pitch black outside as the black smoke would
have caused alarm in daylight!
Monday morning we had a non-cooked breakfast as we’d put a lot of
camping gear away the night before. The wheelers were loaded and we
pulled out by 11am. Nick thought his truck had transmission trouble as it
wouldn’t go faster than 35 mph, but then he remembered he’d parked it in 4 Low,
and when he shifted out, it all worked great! Whew! So glad my kids
are all innovative and can fix things, and think long enough to figure out
innovative solutions!
We all headed to Mom’s house and got cleaned up and had left over
BBQ chicken, potatoes and rice. Ahhh, the blessing of running
water! It’s always sad to see the kids leave to their own homes, but
later in the evening I decided to go to Camp Williams and visit the grave of
Lance Corporal Carlos Aragon who died in Afghanistan, March 1, 2010. As I
arrived there I noticed his Mother and Step-father at the grave site and was
delighted to talk with them. The meaning of Memorial Day was fulfilled
with ending the day by seeing them.
As you can tell we all enjoyed ourselves immensely! It’s the
best thing to bring families together and spend such great quality time.
I am one very blessed Mother who has awesome children!!!
I’ll write on Sunday, but it may be much less of a letter in
length!
Love, Mom <3 span="">
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