Camping In Pictures...

Beaver Creek Arizona.

Early morning breakfasts consisting of red and yellow potatoes, purple onions, an orange and green bell pepper, a banana pepper, and bacon...fried with olive oil and salt and pepper...with fresh pressed coffee and Chai tea for accompaniment.

We camped at a National Forest site...where there were other people camped around us, and the nicest camp hosts I've actually ever met. It was a great place to start our solo camping trips indeed...we both wanted a successful trip in which to dip our camping toes.

One evening as we were sitting finishing up dinner with smores we heard the little boy from the camp next to us say, "Mom? What's a wet dream?" DaNece and I stifled our laughter as we both fell off our chairs.

We did not hear the reply.

The tents all set up in our site...we incidentally had to set them up in the dark by the time we got to our site on Friday night. This was both DaNece and I's first time setting our tents up. She's met her tent before and was borrowing it for the weekend, but this was my tent's first time out of the box...I recently bought my tent on Geartrade.com. (a lot of wonderful outdoor gear at very very deep discounts indeed!) It is a 3-person North Face Rock 32 and it is an amazing tent! It is very roomy, with two vestibules for extra gear, lot's of net for ventilation, and easy peasy to set up (even if it's your first time doing it without instructions in the dark.) It is also light enough for me to take backpacking (which is the main reason I grabbed it) and water proof to boot!!

I had a chance to test out the water bit during an impromptu rain and hail storm on Saturday...I sat in the tent and watched the water that was running under my tent make the floors ripple and twist...but really, only a few drops got in, and I lost a vestibule (my fault for not staking it well enough) Only Lola was really traumatized (although, she did great for the rest of the trip...) I was giggling from all the rain, hail, ad the lightning and thunder that was all around us as I held the sides of my tent!

Hiking the first day consisted of a lot of rock hopping up Beaver Creek.

We would have loved to have walked in the creek more...but true to this part of Arizona, the rocks are mighty slimy and hard to get a foot hold on.


Local bark at our end spot on the trail.

There were spiderwebs stretched and crossing most of the creek...we found ourselves with mouth fulls of the silk several times...I was betting we were going to be mostly cocooned by the time we returned to camp.


Someone was trying to eat a prickly pear and didn't get very far...but they left a vibrant and beautiful seed trail behind.


The small purple flowers that grow in the red red dirt of the area that climb along side the creek.











DaNece, Lola, and I.

We're forming our own scouting group for our misadventures which will no doubt be famous...

At the end of our hiking adventures on Saturday Lola scared some of the local wildlife while DaNece and I were waist deep in a huge blackberry brier. I heard this rustle behind me, but didn't think too much of it...DaNece had turned around to look to see what it was and when her face turned a shade of white that I'd never seen, along with a horrified expression all while saying,

"it's a...it's a...it's a..."

in a rather high pitch...I decided it would be wise for me to grab her and pick my knees up and run us out of the brier...shrieking the whole time. (I later told her that I was trying to judge if I could throw her down and outrun her, because then at least I knew I would be safe...Lola, the fearless dog was totally nonplussed however...and just stood there rolling her eyes at us, probably trying to figure out what all the screaming was about)

When we were far enough away from the rustling DaNece informed me that apparently we were being followed by a rather LARGE gray snake.

We did not pause to take pictures.


About as ripe as the berries got...

All the ones I tasted were very sour, and the area is just crawling with the blackberries, so that was sad.

I did scratch the heck out of my legs while running from the snake though...so I did take some blackberry souvenirs home with me, just not the kind I can make into pie.


The river ran red after the storm.


It was an incredible camping trip...and I so needed to get away. I have so many projects stacked up ready and waiting for my attention, and I had totally lost my inspiration...I was tired and needed a break.

That's just what I got.

A relaxing and fun filled adventure weekend...reminding me how much I love to camp and hike. There was a lot of talk about backpacking in the future...also something that I've been wanting to do...and now I have a couple of willing participants to have misadventures with!