Archive for the ‘camping’ tag
Camping at Horseshoe Lake
Click to see my photojournal of our camping trip to Horseshoe Lake
February 14-15, 2009: Mesquite campground at Horseshoe Lake, Verde River.
Highlights of this trip:
- The Brazaletes Pueblo ruin at the summit of St. Clair Mountain was extremely fascinating. One of the most extensive ruin sites I’ve seen (that hasn’t been developed for public interpretation, that is).
- First time camping since Scott made the dinette modification. Compared to the bench seat we had previously, the dinette is SO family friendly. The set up is much roomier and the layout is far more conversational. I liked that there was room for the hubby, a tween and the toddler to sit there while I prepared a meal and served it to them at the table. When we had the bench, there wasn’t a lot of room for other people to sit on it while I was cooking – knees in the way. And, of course, no table, so I was handing the food out. We always had to eat outside. While that is usually something we WANT to be doing, since we’re camping, after all, it was pretty cold on this trip (got below freezing at night) so we were glad to have the dine-inside-where-it-was-warm-and-comfortable option.
- HM fell into the river once while climbing out onto a tree from the beach at our campsite. Completely drenched, from head to toe. Later, after she was dried off and in dry, warm clothes, the dog dragged her into the water’s edge from the muddy beach. Not as wet this time, but much muddier.
I think HM learned her lesson and now understands why I always harp about using the gentle leader!
- It was cold weather for falling into the freezing cold river (like HM did… twice!) or sitting at icy concrete picnic table, but it was the PERFECT temperature and conditions for hiking and exploring, which we managed to do a lot of on this trip!
Camping and RVing at Roosevelt Lake
This camper was surely the best investment we have made recently. It is SO MUCH FUN!
Here are a slew of pix from our weekend and below the link a few of my faves. 
http://flickr.com/photos/betsybe/sets/72157609841178619/
November 21-23, 2008. We headed out to Roosevelt Lake to camp this weekend with Scott’s parents (in their RV) and Andrea, Jay and McKenna. Friday night we enjoyed fresh-made tamales around the campfire. We had a lazy Saturday and, after a big breakfast on Sunday morning complete with bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, pancakes and fruit, we caravaned just up the road to hike up to the cliff dwelling ruins at Tonto National Forest. We shared a picnic lunch before heading home. What a fun weekend!!
Mira and her cousin got to sleepover in the grandparent’s RV!! They were in HEAVEN, can you tell??
View of the lake from our campsite:
My sister in law and father in law, but especially the artwork taped up behind them lol
Jake terrorizing the RV
Breakfast feast
Cousins playing in Grandma and Grandpa’s RV (the kids all slept in the RV – grandma and grandpa are SAINTS.)
We hiked up to this cliff dwelling:
Cool view of where we were camping (down by the lake) from where we were hiking this afternoon:
Me, hiking, with trekking poles in hand…
Cool pic of the cliff dwelling ruins. You can’t really see it in this particular photo, but the cave ceiling is totally blackened from ancient campfires. Isn’t that wild? 600 year old soot.
Scott & his dad (with Jake napping in the ergo on Scott’s back). Overlooking Roosevelt Lake at Tonto National Monument – at the base of hike up to the lower cliff dwelling ruins.
Three generations of Bailey boys
Jake took this pic during a diaper change!
After sleeping through the whole hike, Jake is rarin’ to go!
Camping at Kellner Canyon Group Site
Our camping trip this weekend was a rally with other people who own truck campers similar to ours. We had a great time talking about camping, trucks and campers and campsites and hiking and offroading and etc. etc.
This was Jake’s first camping trip where he’s walking! It was a particularly rocky site, and not very flat either. The terrain was pretty challenging for him, and he took a number of spills that looked quite painful (no wonder we never remember being this age – oh the trauma!). He can totally fall backwards and NOT hit his head though – it cracks me up. It’s like he’s falling in slow motion and he holds back his head from cracking the ground and then slowly rests it on the ground. Once he’s all comfortably sprawled on his back like a stranded turtle, then he commences to wail.
A couple times he fell just to his butt, but he didn’t want to touch the dirt while standing back up. That was frustrating, but he was cute as anything while he tried to figure out this problem. He’d push his hands down, against the air, as if that might be useful. It wasn’t. Eventually he got a little less squeamish about touching the dirt.
HM and her BFF found a creek and played in it ALL DAY. We hardly saw them. They came back at sunset covered in mud from head to toe. Soaked. They had been removing congesting debris and attempting to redirect the creek’s flow. Shoes completely soaked and caked with mud. Luckily one of the other campers had a solar shower and little privacy tent and generously shared their facility.
Here are all the campers:
I love this picture – we were just settling in to enjoy the fire last night as the sun started to set…
Jake looks really big to me in this photo! Like a real toddler look about him:
Just one of the big kids…
Before they found the creek:
One of the couples were professional photographers – primarily nature. Linda was taking photos of a butterfly perched on HM’s friend’s finger:
Camping at Chevelon Canyon
August 31 – September 1, 2008. Scotty found us the coolest campsite this weekend! Here are all the pix:
http://flickr.com/photos/betsybe/sets/72157607068930967/
We arrived at the campground around 11:30 am on Sunday afternoon. This location is so remote, that there was hardly anyone there, even though it was Labor Day weekend – wonderful!
We had time to fix and eat lunch and set up camp before a storm came through. Once it passed, we had time to take a hike and do some exploring and come back, relax for a few minutes, start the fire and prepare and eat dinner before the NEXT big storm blew through. PHEW – so lucky!
We got a new little travel crib for Jake and he slept mostly all night in it – hurrah!
Here are some of my fave pix from the set (LOL I had a hard time narrowing it down! There are still tons more in the photo set on flickr is the scary thing!
Camping at Pinal Peak
Scott, Jake and I went tent camping at the Pinal Recreation Area on Saturday, August 2. We visited the Besh Ba Gowah Indian Ruins in Globe, AZ before heading 15 miles through mountainous wilderness (on a bumpy dirt road carved out along the mountain sides) to achieve the peak of the Pinal mountain range, where the campsites are located.
We didn’t get much sleep that night. Some campers nearby partied loudly until midnight. Then the wind picked up, noisily rattling our tent. Just when we might drift off to sleep, Jake woke up and thought… playtime! We were pretty sleep deprived on Sunday, but the trip was still completely worth it!
Our next camping adventure will be in our new All Terrain Camper, which should be delivered in 2-3 weeks – yay!!
Here are some of my faves.
Mom to 4 kids and 2 stepkids, I work at home in the heart of the chaos. Founder and executive editor of SheKnows.com and various other sites. Homeschooling. Knitter. Family chef. Gadget geek. Wordphreak. LAZY BLOGGER. 