Camping Utah

Our first weekend together in Colorado. And we didn’t even spend it in Colorado! We drove a couple of hours over into Utah and spent the weekend camping with friends Rick and Jaimee Callies just north of a place called Monticello.

The first night we camped at the bottom of the mountain, right on a lake, mainly because we arrived at about 12am and didn’t feel like driving around too much to find a campsite. The following morning Rick was competing in a bike race, so the rest of us slept in.

Nevan and I took a walk down to the lake, where Nevan fell shin deep into the mud at the bank. He had no clue as to what was going on and got freaked out by it!

That day we drove further up the mountain and found an awesome spot well off the road. That goes without saying that we “attempted” to drive to another spot a little earlier, but our little Ford Escort couldn’t make it over the rocks in the road.

The spot we ended up staying at was under an awesome tree. No one was around, except for the cows. (There was a cow track pretty close to our campsite) That day we strapped the kids up and went for a hike. Rick carried Nevan in a backpack made to hold toddlers, and I carried Liam in a front pack made to hold babies.

The previous night we had stayed inside Rick and Jaimee’s little camper. It was fine until Nevan decided he wanted to sleep with mummy and daddy. The “small as it was” double bed, now containing 4 bodies, was quite cramped! That prompted me to set up our tent, where Nevan and I was going to spend the Saturday night in, a big guy thing. Our first time camping together, just the men. It was fun until the wind picked up at some point in the middle of the night. The howling winds woke us. The build up and then the gale force winds blowing us (almost away) kept us awake. And my mistake of forgetting to get Nevan’s kiddie cup before they locked the camper made it a long night…

The Sunday, our last day, was spent in the Canyonlands. We saw some pretty awesome rock formations on a day reaching 107 degrees Fahrenheit. Rick and I left the wives and boys in the air-conditioned car so we could go for a bit of a hike and rock climbing. This was my first experience in a formation called a “slot canyon”, canyons so narrow you can barely walk through them.

All in all, a fun filled weekend!