My Camping Weekend

CAMPING 

Hello all, how are things today? I hope all is going well. Just in case you are a little bored today or have some spare time on your hands I am going to write about my weekend camping trip with the family.

Beginning

The story starts on Fri afternoon. I got off work early because I wanted to hit the road early and try to avoid any mishaps, like what happened last weekend when I drove to Phoenix to see the Murder Mystery Dinner, which was really fun by the way. The only problem was I had to wait for my son to drive down from Oakland so we could drive to Phoenix together and meet up with my brother (#2) before driving up to Prescott. Yes a very long day of driving for sure. 

Loaded and ready to go

                                           

The Drive

Apparently he slept through his alarm clock because he worked the night before and got home late. No problem. So instead of getting to LA around noon, which is what I wanted, he arrived at almost 2pm. So basically we were running about 1.5 hours behind. After he finally arrived we loaded my car and hit the road. He was able to get a little sleep on the drive there which was good. The traffic was not nearly as bad as last Fri evening but there are still people who really, really do not know what mirrors are! YOU HAVE THREE OF THEM PEOPLE!! Learn how to use them, if you don't know by now. Two side ones and one rear-view. Also for the slower drivers...obey the signs and STAY OUT OF THE LEFT LANE!! Sorry, I did my rant on that last weekend so I'm done for now. I do have one complaint/curiosity though...How is it that going into the Fastrack lanes (in Riverside) its stop and go but the regular lanes are freely moving? How does that work? Anyway on with the drive. We ended up at my brothers2 house around 8pm. We transferred our stuff from my car to his truck and hit the road. We got to the camp site around 10pm. My mom and my brothers2 daughters were in the car because it was to cold to be outside and they did not have any blankets or anything because most of it was with us in the truck. My dad was in a hotel due to his back surgery and my other brother (#1) and his kids were asleep already.

Unloading

Instead of going right to bed we unloaded some of the truck, not all of it as it was dark out and we were all tired from the long and tedious day of driving. My brother1 and his son & daughter were in one tent, my mom in one tent, brother2 and his daughters in one tent and my son and I in a tent. Since I'm more of a city person and don't do that much camping; I did not have all the needed items (sleeping bag, extra blankets, warmer clothes) to camp with, neither did my son. In fact he went up with shorts and a long sleeve shirt (he will probably get mad at me for saying this, oh well lol). 

Friday night before bed around the fire

Sleep (or Lack Thereof) 

We all tried to get some sleep in but it was pretty cold that night and all my son and I had were three blankets. So he got two of them and I had one. The temps got down to 30 or below I believe. It was very cold for people from Phoenix. I ended up not being able to sleep at all because it was so cold. I gave my blanket to my son and went out and stayed by the fire all night long, yes I did not sleep, I just stood by the fire and kept it going all night long. I was up from Fri morning at 5am to Sat night at 10pm. Vehicles were still coming through the camp up to 1:30am. I'm just thinking to myself...what are you all doing? Anyway then things were quiet for a bit until about 5am when the Coyotes decided they wanted to have a conversation or two. They did not stop until almost 6am. That was fine with me as I was still awake. Later I found out that most of the others did not get much sleep either due to the cold, but at least they got some sleep.

Saturday

With the sun finally coming up on day two things began to start warming up to the point where we could shed some of the extra layers of clothes and be somewhat normal. We all sat around the fire making coffee while the kids were playing around. We discussed what the POA (plan of action) was for the day. Brother1 went and picked up my dad from the hotel and brought him back to camp. After everyone ate, brushed the teeth, changed and got ready, we piled into the cars and headed to the town center. 

In Town

My mom, brother1 and dad went hiking. Well, not my dad, he waited in the car due to his back. My brother2, son and I with the four kids went to the town center and walked around the courthouse park, shopped, played and enjoyed our time together. Of course I was tired. I finally sat in the shade of one of the trees and closed my eyes. Everyone else ended up going to the candy store so the kids could get some goodies. Finally the others were done hiking and joined us in the square. Next was going to one of the shopping centers in Prescott Valley for shopping, movie and lunch.

My nieces playing on the
courthouse steps

My son and nieces playing in the park

Shopping Center

We went to the shopping center next because that is where the movie theater was that was showing the movie we wanted to see. Before that though and more importantly was getting lunch. We ate at Garcia's. The family enjoying each other and having some good food. After lunch my parents went back to camp because they didn't want to see a movie. My brother1 and his kids saw Zootopia, my son saw Gods of Egypt and my brother2, his daughters and I saw Miracles from Heaven (my review will be posted soon). We all thought the movies were good. Afterwards we needed to get some supplies i.e. sleeping bags, blankets; stuff to keep us warm during the cold nights. I got a sleeping bag for myself as my son had already acquired one from another family member. Then we got some blankets as well to help keep warm. 

The Family 

Getting ready to order (From left to right: Brother1 his daughter, his son
brother2 daughter, dad, mom, my son, brother2 daughter and brother2

Evening

We got back to camp in the early evening. It was still light out but we needed to get ready for another cold night. My dad wanted to stay in the camp with us and not the hotel again so we set up a bed and make shift room in the back of my brothers2 truck. Dinner was almost ready. We had steaks that we cooked on the grill. Of course while cooking mine, I turned it over and lost it...it fell into the ashes lol. My son poured some water over it to try and clean it off (think about it, kids these days have it so easy). I put it back on the grill, cooked it some more and ate it, of course each bite had a slight crunch to it lol. We got all the sleeping bags and blankets passed out and set up then we sat around the campfire, cooked smores, talked about past happenings and current things. One by one everyone went to bed until it was just me and the fire again. I stayed up a little bit until my eyes were drooping and then I knew it was time for me to go down. I was finally able to get some sleep...YEAH!

Sunday

The next morning (Sunday and official first day of spring) we were all going to get up at 7am and start packing before going to breakfast in town. Of course, things did not turn out that way. My mom, who originally said we were going to breakfast in town, decided she did not want to go, or she just wasn't ready to go yet, I forget which one. So it ended up everyone but her got in the vehicles and went to eat at a nice little restaurant in town called Apple Pan Annie's. OMG it was so good. I could have eaten almost everything on the menu. We met one of my best friends there and we were able to catch up on things. We enjoyed it. Then everyone headed back to camp. Everyone decided that they were going to go back to Phoenix that day instead of the original plan which was for my parents, brother1 and his kids staying one more night (Sun then leave on Mon).  

Sunday Morning Bunch

Packing

We started packing and loading everything into the vehicles. Can someone explain why loading takes longer than unloading lol. We were able to make everything work. My brother1 went golfing though before heading back to Phoenix while brother2, his daughters, my son and myself headed back to his house. Once there, we unloaded our stuff from his truck and into my car and then we were off to LA (sunset by the time we arrived lol).

Packing up the Campground

Just couldn't get everything together at once

Home

Going back was not to bad. We passed 3 or 4 accidents on the way (on the opposite side of the road luckily). One was a semi that looked like a bomb had gone off right beside it. It was all burnt and bent inward. The traffic was backed up for miles. In that traffic stop there were two more accidents. I definitely would not want to of been in all that mess. Poor people. The rest of the drive was pretty smooth. There was an accident on the 10 in Palm Springs but we got routed around it thanks to Waze (which I was using) and Google Maps (which my son was using) and my car (which we were both using). All three routed us around it and shaved a good 20 minutes off our drive time. We finally arrived home in the evening. I was tired but still had things to do and my son had to drive back to Oakland. Needless to say, it was a another long day of driving and a long, much needed weekend away.

I hope you enjoyed. It may have been boring, that's OK; because we had a good time and enjoyed family time together. Thanks for reading.