Camping

We spent some time in up in the Sawtooth's this weekend....what a beautiful place!!! Also cold...the nights were in the low 40's but the days were a beautiful 80ish. Even though we have a camper it is a "pop-up" so basically like a tent which equals not too warm! Since Will loves to scream at night while camping this means I get to be out of my warm sleeping bag hanging out with him in near freezing weather. Brad claims he was also awake but I did not see evidence of this...I was having many thoughts wondering how Brad keeps convincing me that I like to go camping from about 3am until 7am the first night. Then the sun rose, things started heating up, and yes, I remembered why I enjoy the great outdoors.

First off, we had a pretty awesome campsite that accomodated us really well...right next to the Salmon River. We could hear it flowing at night and it was so peaceful. We found out the next morning that we were also right next to a cow pasture as they awakened us (let me re-phrase...awakened everyone but Will & I) with their mooing! But cows aside, it was perfect. Olivia and Maisy were loving their own personal water dish and Olivia was swimming at her leisure. We also had our own personal hummingbird recreation area which was pretty cool. Have you ever felt a hummingbird fly right next to your head??? We can say we have!

The first day we took a 7 mile hike. Grace hiked about 2 miles all by herself. Will rode in the snugli with Mom and then in the backpack for the first time. Grace was so gracious in sharing her hiking gear and was excited to help load up her brother and click the snaps in place. The pups loved the hiking as well...Olivia probably hiked double what we did with all her sprinting around. The trail was by a stream so she was in and out of that the whole time. Her and Maisy were beat for the rest of the camping trip after only one hike!

Other highlights of the trip were Dad & Grace swimming in Redfish Lake. Grace politely asked that we find a warmer place to swim. She didn't think the frigid alpine water was so fun but still went two days in a row. We also took a trip to the hatchery which was very interesting. We saw what we believe was a Pelegrine falcon swoop down and get a fish...still investigating if that was really the bird but we're pretty sure. Another hike around Alturas Lake was fun with Grace hiking most of the way all by herself. Man she is growing up! Hiking with a 3 year old is definetly a slower pace and we stopped and looked at flowers, trees, animal footprints, and most importantly, wild animal poop.

I could go on and on about our trip....but in my opinion the most amazing thing was looking up at the stars at night and getting dizzy...there are so many and they are so vibrant. Cell phones and computers are great for staying in touch with friends and family but there is just something peaceful about being out where there is absolutely no technology....not even a cell phone signal.