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Some more firsts for us during this first camping trip of the summer – first dry camping with our trailer, first mountain camping as a foursome, and for you kids, the first fire pit, and Adela’s first roasted hotdogs and marshmallows for s’mores. This was great. It’s easy to fall a little more in love with California when you have perfect weather, sunny blue skies, beautiful back roads lined with wild flowers and tall evergreens, and access to trails with gorgeous mountain and lake views. My soul needs this. I have grown to love the desert, true. And Cali mountains don’t compare to those in Washington, but this is growing on me, a lot. I’ve enjoyed the parking lot camping we’ve done with full hook ups at the beach as well. But this is something different, closer to “real” camping. Dirtier, quieter, wilder, closer to nature. I’m a fan. And having the camper rather than a tent is nice. I’m not 18 anymore. Some comfort is good. 🙂 And it was great being able to throw you guys in the bath after a couple of days of the dirt and sweat.
We started out the trip with a stop at the Big Bear Discovery Center, traveled a couple miles on a dirt road, and arrived at our Hannah Flats camping site. Then we spent about 15 minutes attempting to shoehorn the camper into an impossible site. Campgrounds like to line roadways with obstacles to keep drivers where they need to be. But this place was ridiculous. There were stone pillars every couple of feet lining the already narrow road. You could see all over where people had run them over or dug them out so that they could get through. Somebody got the math wrong. Some of those turns aren’t possible with a trailer. But Daddy is a good driver. It was a little tense, but he did the impossible and successfully parked us. I was immediately in love. There was heavenly light all around us, and hardly any neighbors since we arrived on a Thursday night before the weekend crowd. Adela helped us gather firewood and Josiah, you manned the camp chairs. You love those things. Standing up. Sitting down. Moving it. Sitting down again. So cute.
You guys are growing up in an age where people don’t go 5 seconds without electronics. At the risk of sounding old, it was nice to unplug. No electricity, no TV, no computers. We had our phones, but we were out of range for data which made me secretly cheer. I think we forget how much of life there is to live, to experience to do without all those screens in our life. Seriously. It’s therapeutic.
