the camping trip that almost wasn't

Also, the blog post that almost wasn't. (Read the title.) I had many more pics I planned to post today yesterday, but, after 2 hours spent trying to figure out picasa, 2 hours I could have spent cleaning bathrooms or laundering laundry or pretending to not watch the ID channel, here I am spending at least 2+ hours trying to put this dang post together.

My first plan was to write a post that included many pictures from the last few weeks but after spending so much of my precious time, which I should have been doing all the stuff I don't and probably won't, I narrowed it down to these few from last weekend.

Let me explain the title of this post first. (skip to the pics if you'd rather not read this explanation.)

Okay, now that no one is reading, I will open up and share my TRUE feelings about this camping trip. I pretty much hated the whole thing. I know that I'm a big giant complainer pants, but let's be honest here, I do not love nor much like camping. (I don't want to hear about how camping in an RV isn't real camping. Shut it.) I like checking into air conditioned hotel rooms with soft beds heaped with copious pillows. Going out to eat, even if it's Subway. Do not care as long as I don't have to cook. Normal sized bathrooms with flush toilets. And not losing every single thing I set down for a moment. It's my own darn problem that I chose to stay in the camper most of the time and avoid the plague of flying insects and the relentless sun, (gone are the days in which I desire to bask in the hot hot heat), but I was beyond stir crazy by the time we left Sunday morning. This reaction from a woman who goes days at a time without venturing out further than the yard.

But I usually find more to enjoy than to complain about. Not this time though. I've had such a sucky attitude of late and I dragged that frame of mind along with me when we left Thursday. Kevin had no idea where we were going other than somewhere near Strawberry, only some vague directions to the perfect location given from a work buddy. Well, after a brain scrambling drive on the worst road in the history of roads and 4 hours later, he finally accepted the fact that we would have to go an actual campground or go home. (guess who proposed the go home idea.)

I love Kevin. He never gives up. He never gets mad at me. I do not deserve him.

Serendipitously, 2 days before we left I caught a friend's photo album she'd just posted to FB and it just so happened that she and her family had just returned from the Aspen Grove campground near Strawberry, a campground I'd never heard of before, and it looked beautiful. A few things were misleading in her photos, like the fact that there were several shots of her family on quad trails, yet we found out that you can't drive them out of the campground NOR on any road leading to a trail. Also there were no shots of them furiously batting away millions of annoying flying insects. Since I'd seen her FB album, we knew we should go see if there were any spots available and there were. Aspen Grove turned out to be a pretty good place to camp. Even Kevin was mildly accepting of it.



So, now you see why see this camping trip almost wasn't. That is, if you actually read the previous several paragraphs.

NOW, believe it or not, there are a few things I do LOVE about camping:

camping up in dem hills

1. The beautiful majesty of this world, the mountains, trees, blue skies, and... parking lots.

fixin' up some breakfast
sausage, hash browns, eggs, and pancakes

2. A Denny's style breakfast. Only the food actually tastes good.

3. Game Time. 

OKAY, all of the next pictures are inexplicably out of order. I tried 3 times to make it right, and then gave up.

#4 "Random". Yes, I like random.

Random is fishing for Crayfish. Or is it Crawdads? Random is boiling them alive and eating them. They say crawfish taste like lobster. I wouldn't know.

Craw/Crayfishin' (didn't mean to exclude Tanner from these photos. Hey, that's his shoe!)

chicken and potatoes. for real.




#5. Dutch Oven Food!!!!!!! yumyumyumyum

It's Jessie!                                                                       And Tanner!

#6. family.

Don't know why I didn't take a picture of Jake and Maki. :(

And now for a bunch more random pictures:

Wes w/an AirHead & Hunter; Granny's ice cream that no one liked; Jessie & her Phone; Grammar boo boo

owie

oh Hunter you're a good camping dog

Crayfish or Crawdads?

bye bye blog readers!

These are Called Good Times

update: no new look... just messing around. skip paragraphs 1-7. 

I see you're checking out my new look. (tip: click on the post title and see it all big and lovely). It's called 'magazine', which looked attractive to me and once I thought about it I knew why. Cuz I loves magazines and when I still had hopes and dreams I did aspire to work for a brilliant magazine. It seemed so glamourous. Living in the big city, wearing fashionable clothes, driving a sports car, going to plays and museums, and of course the cutest hippest apartment would have been mine.

OR I would have worked on a college newspaper like Rory, and have bantered back and forth with my cute hip mom, who would never miss a beat.

There are several problems with these scenarios. Like the fact that I'm not much of writer, though I like to think I could be, and the fact that I would've had to graduate from college, which I din't. It might have helped if I had gotten past fantasizing. A willingness to work hard, really hard, not giving up, not talking myself out of even trying.

Not to mention the ability to speak as fast I think.

Ah. How I digress. Even before I've gressed.

That fantasy still pops up now and then and that is why I now have my own fake magazine. With 3, possibly as high as 4, readers.  Now if I could figure out how to have a crazy great header, like a HEADLINE, that'd be just so perfect. Blogger just can't figure out how to be totally user (the clueless kind of user) friendly. Am I supposed to be able to write CSS? Do I know what that means?

Let's gress.

This past 1/2 of a weekend Kevin, Wes, Hunter, and I saddled up the horse and buggy, aka the Chevy Silverado 4x4 and Toy Hauler, and headed on up to the Bear Lake. A lake which I've been asking to visit forEVER and which now Kevin thinks he discovered. We met Jessie and Tanner at the KOA in Garden City. The campground was basically deserted which is fortunate since I do not think that's a place I'd want to camp in when it is fully occupied. It has to be said that Tanner saved our butts that night, jumping in making our dinner before we knew it. (Not to mention breakfast the next morning).
Jake and Makaela came up and ate dinner with us. We visited, we laughed, we ate pink jello and omgosh the best pumpkin brownies ever. After Jake left, J&T and Wes and I played UNO, much too loudly, while poor Kevin tried to sleep. Times spent with my family are quite simply the greatest moments for me. I can't even put it into words. So yeah, who needs a flipping magazine career anyway?

It was dark and there was a man-eating beetle so I didn't really know much of what things looked like until the next late morning. Welp, it is gorgeous, just gorgeous. Did I take one single photo of the autumn leaves on the trees all over the rolling hills and mountains? Well, heck no. What is wrong with me!? (Too busy lusting after the cabins).

yep, the biggest, grossest, shudder-inducing, but I hadn't seen until Jake sent me this photo, water beetle.

After a very relaxed, late start to the day, we piled into the truck and drove around the lake. Which was tee-riffic except for the carsick prone among us. We finally threw Wes into the back of the truck so he'd quit his complaining. I think it worked.

Property of the Highland Hawks

What's your opinion?

I'm Free!

Possibly my most favorite photo ever. 

After driving nearly all the way around, at the north end, we stopped at where I hope we camp next year. For longer than 24 hours preferably. It's called Rendezvous Campground and I type that only to show that I now know how to correctly spell rendezvous. 

We pulled into a campground spot, which is connected to the little beach and spent some time. Where the majority of the photos from the trip were taken. 

Discoverer of Bear Lake

LOOK AT HUNTER'S FACE!

Mary and her Boy. 

That's me and my boy, Wes.

(And my hideous San Diego Sweatshirt. Someone put that thing out of its misery).

J&T

Could they be any cuter?

Rock Skipping

The epitome of style and grace. 

All the right moves.

Wes

What are those two in the background looking for?

Still looking I guess.

Eureka!! Looks like they found it. Whatever it is. 

Wes and Jess

Looks like Wes was planning something... 

Chipmunk in the Tree
What can he see?

ask Wes

Where's Wes?

oh yeah. you already knew. 

So ends my saga on the trip to the Bear Lake. So ends another fall. All the more to look forward to next year. 

*****

IF all that wasn't entertaining enough for you, check out what Wes brought home from Church today.

It's true. He really does. 

toodles. 

Le Restaurante

In the interest of meeting the needs and requests of my readership 

I present our evening of dining at Ruth's Chris.

Is that the dumbest name for a restaurant or not?

Think about it.

Mary's Kevin?

(Sean Hannity explained the meaning behind the name numerous times. I still think it's strange.)

(Even stranger is the fact that I listened to his radio show at all.)
(All he did for me was to send me into an apoplectic fit.)

There's not much I can say about these photos.

And trust me, you will not understand them either.

ps The lighting was too weird for me and the camera to work with. I blame the camera.

FYI I do not have a fetish for salt and pepper.
you'll understand

Chipmunk Mouth

It's hard to choose a favorite. Sorry.

This was the last night we were in the land of Disney. Ruth's Chris just happened to be in our hotel parking lot, a fact that Kevin noticed immediately upon our arrival and since he really never had a birthday dinner he decided that was where we'd celebrate. Well, his birthday had nothing to do with anything, other than making us all feel a little less guilty. 

We were plumb tuckered out after our LONG day of speeding through the Park, (something maybe I'll talk about at another time), and I thought we'd just eat in our hotel room. I wasn't especially hungry since I'd just devoured a bag of kettle corn. Something I despaired at finding in the Park and at the last minute did, and also something that tastes much better in theory than reality.

But when the subject of dinner came out Kevin and Jess got all excited about going to Ruth's Chris. (I don't think I can type that name even one more time, so I'll just call it the restaurant from now on.)  I, however, balked at the idea cuz I had kernels coming out my ears, haha, pun intended, and of course all Wes wanted to eat was a Subway Sandwich. Besides I was wearing my crap Disneyland clothes and looked and felt gross and definitely didn't feel like changing. Like any other day, really.

I protested on the grounds that what I was wearing was too casual, but no, K & J were all like, oh, you look fine. Whatever. I didn't change my clothes, but they did. The sneaky little buggers. And I looked like a frazzled bumpkin. And YES it did matter. Maybe in Hickville Utah you can get away with wearing capris and flip flops every single place you go, including the ballet, (not that I would even do that which is surprising considering my low standards), but in real cities, not so much. 

But our money is as good as anyone else's so we were allowed to eat. Thankfully the restaurant was very dimly lit, and I sorta covered myself with the tablecloth once we sat down. 

I am SOOOOOOOOO NOOOOTTTT a steak person so I totally don't get what's so great about The Restaurant... but apparently it was good stuff. No worries, I ate more than my fair share of other yummy food. So much so that I thought my intestines were going to implode.

Now that would've been a pretty picture.

Spring Breakation Twenty Eleven

Wes' Spring Break=Perfect Timing

When we first received Mike's Retirement Announcement announcing that he would be retiring as a Colonel from the United States Marine Corps, (my apologies if my wording is incorrect), we were somewhat discouraged and doubted we'd be able to go because frankly, Wes has missed so much school this year that we darest not take him out of school to go to California. 

Even if we drove down just for the Ceremony Wes would still have to miss too many days. 

But woo to the hoo... upon closer inspection I noticed that the Retirement Ceremony was April 14th, and you guessed it,
that was the Thursday of the week of...

Spring Break!!

(I excel at building up the suspense, do you not agree?)

Therefore, in the spirit of practicalism, we made the decision to hit Disneyland while in So Cal. 

It was just gonna be Kevin, Wes and I going, but first Jessie said she wanted to go, and then Jake said he wanted to go and I always want the whole family together, (Kristen also wanted to go but it was definitely not a possiblity for her), so of course I too wanted them to go on this vacation. 

Turns out Jake had a test he could not miss, but Jessie managed to work it out so she could come with us. (Not so sure if that was a good idea really, (school reasons), but what's done is in the past.) It was a blast to have her with us. I was a happy Mama-face, don't you just know it? I also Jessie made Disneyland a katrillion times more fun for Wes. 

(I should title this post "to go")
(But I'm not going to)

Anydizzle
Here are some crack photos from our trip.
When you take 200 very sub-par at best photos it really becomes difficult to choose just a few to share.
(Remember the sucky camera advice from the last post)

Also, remember this is The Family Buckner take on the happiest place on earth.
nuff said.

LET THE ORIES BEGIN!

I promise that the sign that Jess and Wes are blocking said "Disneyland" when I snapped the photo. Never mind that they're sideways and the a hundred yards away from the sign. 

This was taken on 4/10/2011 fyi. 

It was Sunday, so we just walked around real reverent like.

Below is Wes in heaven, er, I mean, the Lego Store, which we found, to our great happiness, is located in DISNEYLAND, negating any need to go to LEGOLAND!!

If you know anything you know what I'm talking about.

Otherwise you don't care.

Look closely at what the "Try Me" box is doing... super fun.

LEGOMANIAC

OLD FOLKS

Taking a good picture of Kevin and I is just not possible. That's all I got to say about that.

RAWRRRRRR

Can I just say I LOVE Wes' face in this shot!! 

I LOVE Wes' face in this shot!!

Some people are just so much more in tune with their surroundings.

Jess is in tune with looking good in every single photo she's in.

JUNGLE JUXTAPOSITION 

Another fave. 

Such a beautiful day it was.

I call this Woman trying to hide saggy neck

Need I say more?

Other than Why?

Miles of Smiles

This is the line for "California Screaming"

Wes really wasn't nervous... just posing.

Kevin and I rode the rollercoaster 2 times and

Jess and Wes, 3. 

Super duper fun.

I should know why this picture is special, but I don't. 

They sure look cute though.

PETRIFIED RAWRRRRRR

I thought it was awesome that the dino bones were found so conveniently next to Thunder Mountain. I don't know why I'm surprised, it is Disneyland after all.

*****

Last but not least, the Oceanside Harbor.

I feel terrible about the picture taking aspect of this part of our breakation.

Because Mike's (and Lynne's) Ceremony was just so wonderful.

They let us stay for two nights in their beautiful home and we had a great time. Tree house, fantabulous breakfast, (thank you Lynne!), Beautiful views, Bee Invasion, Chatting. 

(for Jess it was mostly homework... not fun for her) 

The best part of all was Thursday Night. 

The worst part is I have no pictures and really no way to describe it right now. 

So much emotion packed into that special evening. 

Once again, thank you to Mike and Lynne. 

Maybe I ought to tell them about this blog. 

hmmmmmm. 

doh.

Oceanside Harbor