Summer's Last Hurrah

Well, this summer has been crazy busy. We usually try to go camping a lot even if it's just a few days a piece. This summer we only went camping once and hadn't really done anything else either. This was in part because Shane had to use up PTO hours when his work had cut Fridays in the spring.

Anyway, for the last hurrah of the summer we went up to Fish Lake with my mom and dad, aunt and uncle, and cousins. It was pretty good. I enjoyed being with the people that were there. They go up to Fish Lake every year it seems. This was our first time.

The weather was pretty crazy though. I don't mind camping in the rain, and if it is cold, I just make sure to bring warm clothes and that doesn't bother me that much either...but...WIND is horrible. And it was WINDY. WINDY. WINDY!!! So much so that we came home a day earlier than we had planned after having the wind whip our tent all night long. LONGEST. NIGHT. EVER!

I am also, I decided, a mountain forest camping kind of person. I like there to be pine trees, or trees that provide some form of shade. I'm allergic to sage brush and juniper trees (according to the allergist) and guess what dominates the scenery up at fish lake? Sage brush. And it was all in bloom. At the lake itself there is a forest of aspen trees, which are very pretty, but they don't provide a whole lot of shade.

The campground we were at, most of the campsites had little to no shade. At all. The campsite we were at was right next to a field of sagebrush.

We had pulled a boat down for my dad to go fishing in. It was an older ski boat that Shane and his brother share.

So, the wind started up Saturday, but in the afternoon Shane took the kids, my dad, and a fellow camper out in the boat to go fishing. There were whitecaps on the lake and not too many boats because it was so windy and choppy. Shane told me the waves were big enough that they were crashing over the bow of the boat. Yikes! I can't imagine someone being out there in a little fishing boat.

Sunday the wind was WORSE. We normally don't go camping over Sunday, but there is a summer branch that meets up at Fish Lake so we went to that. It was a good experience. There were over 900 people there. WOW. They meet at the lodge. So, that was interesting in and of itself. It was like having a sacrament meeting at stake conference. :)

The wind turned into microbursts and was so terrible that we couldn't really do anything but hunker down in my parents trailer. This wouldn't have been too bad, but Sylvie is not allowed in my parent's trailer (which is fine) and I felt bad leaving her outside in the horrible wind.

So, I convinced Shane that we should drive down to Capitol Reef National Park and see what it was like. That was the best part of our whole vacation! We were both bemoaning the fact that we had forgotten our camera and had to settle for pictures with our cell phones. Which is okay, but not a camera.

The scenery was so spectacular and amazing every turn of the road just made us ooh and aah all the more. We went to a spot called the goosenecks which is a view of the river winding, and you are 800 ft above it! It was like a mini grand canyon. So beautiful! Then we stopped and saw petroglyphs which the kids both thought were really cool. After that it was getting close to dark so we headed back to camp, went to bed, and spent the night wondering when the tent would finally have it and rip apart!

We had been planning on heading back Tuesday morning, but decided that enough was enough, and headed home Monday instead. Of course Monday was gorgeous after about 10 AM, but it was too late! We had already started to pack and take down our tent. :)

So, it was a good experience, but not one that we will probably repeat any time soon.