Ah, the Great Outdoors...

This weekend, we had a great time camping in Logan Canyon with our friends Kevin, Becky and Owen Ward! We stayed at the Malibu-Guinivah campground, about 5 miles into the canyon.

We arrived on Friday evening and spent our time letting the boys get as dirty as possible while the adults visited. Chris had to work until 9:30, which was a bummer, but we were happy to welcome him to our later campfire chat. Becky and Kevin made a cobbler in the dutch oven and we all enjoyed eating the standard camping junk food!

Here was the real excitement of our trip: As I was lying on our sleeping bag-covered air matress, trying to snuggle little Gordon to sleep late that night, I began to hear the skittering movement of animals outside our tent. The first unnerving sound was that of our garbage bag dropping from its perch on a tree-- then two or more chatty raccoons arguing over the contents. Raccoons, though annoying, didn't scare me much, but it was the next sound that sent wild shivers up my spine. It started out with large stomping and branches snapping-- obviously, whatever was out there was not a tiny raccoon. Then a low, growly grunt, followed by a high-pitched whine. What was it? Huge raccoon? Moose? Wild Hog? Bear?.... Sasquatch??? Whatever it was, the animal spent every dark moment carousing our campsite and splashing in the nearby marsh-- with my 2 AM imagination, it was certainly listening carefully to the babble of my one-year-old, trying to determine how difficult it would be to snatch him from our tent and devour his chubby little body. Needless to say, I was freaked out. When morning finally rescued us from our traumatic sleepless night, we found our garbage bag and its contents strewn a bit on the ground, and small pawprints left by the little vermin who had made the mess. But no evidence of the Sasquatch... except for four exhausted campers!

On Saturday, Chris made a tasty dutch oven breakfast which we thoroughly enjoyed as we compared accounts of the previous night's events. After we cleaned up the camp, we went on a fun nature walk on Riverside Trail. It was really fun to be out in the canyon-- especially in daylight!! We said good-bye to the Wards in the early afternoon and the boys and I went home to nap while Chris stayed and fished. He caught two tasty trout that we enjoyed eating on Saturday evening. Despite the Sasquatch encounter, we really did have a wonderful weekend!

 

Elise and Gordon on the nature walk
The kids having fun in the back of the car
Look how cute-- and dirty!-- Owen is!
Tom just loves to throw rocks in the river
Chris and his Dutch Oven
Gordon running around the campsite
Sitting around the campfire with Becky
Elise & Becky
Sleepy Gordon after a long night