I grew up camping with my family. I am the second oldest of nine children. Eight of us were girls- the oldest is my brother. My parents loved to go places and do stuff- but really most anything multiplied by 11 is quite pricey. So we camped- a lot. I loved it- I still love it. Steve grew up camping with his family, but mostly with his dad and the scouts. It’s something we want to share our love of with our kids. We’ve done a camping trip or so every summer- but this year we’re determined to do more. So I bring you ‘camping in Utah’ trip #1-

Topaz Mountain
Topaz mountain is located just west of Delta close to the Nevada boarder. What? There is nothing west of Delta? I submit to you that there is. It’s mostly desert- but it’s cool desert! Topaz mountain is a ‘rock hounding’ area where all that glitters is not gold- but is Topaz. It’s everywhere- but mostly in rocks. But you can find places where it’s eroded away and they’re there for the picking.

It’s a primitive area though- no water and no bathrooms- which is hard with little girls. But we’re cool with that- we brought the pee pee tee pee!

We’ve had this tee pee for years and the girls love it (thanks again Arlyn!) but we decided it would be fabulous with our training potty for a potty- privacy- yet no floor if anything gets spilled.

We saw lots of cool wildlife:
Scorpions

Lizards

Deer (they’re in profile on the top of the hill)

Snakes (see it slithering out of the bush?)

Monkeys

I used to get all stressed about camping. It was so much work- too much prep and too much clean up- not to mention the cooking and the dishes. Well- I’ve simplified and although it’s not gourmet- it’s so much less stress!
Our ‘cook it yourself’ dinner:

Pretty much our standard ‘overnighter’ food- hot dogs with chili and baked beans, with a s’mores chaser. For breakfast we did french toast on our little stove (by we I mean Steve). I had the eggs and milk mixed up before we came.

Cori being schooled in the finer way to roast a hot dog:

I should mention that Cori’s birthday was Saturday and the ‘reason’ we were going camping. Really it just worked out. But Cori is three! She’s already started the moodiness that comes with a three year old.
“I’m not walking any further- and you can’t make me!”

Ohh! Pretty rock! (Okay- you can’t see the sparkles in the picture- but it’s a good back ground shot)

Our camp site (the tents are behind the car):

We’ve picked up some new gear lately, most of it comes with a story-
A brief shout out to Big 5. Last summer we went camping in Virginia and opened our brand new tent and discovered that all the elastic in the poles was cut. It was too big of a tent to buy replacements- they had to be ordered. So we got a smaller tent to tide us over and put our kids in family member’s tents. We’ve not camped since then and although I’ve thought several times, ‘I need to call them and get new poles’ I’ve never actually done it. So Thursday I took the poles to Big 5 hoping they’d have a similar tent and I could swap out/ buy new poles. They didn’t carry that tent anymore- but even though it was a year later they gave me store credit and I got a new tent! Woo! Yeah for great service. Here is our new tent (which is HUGE).

I also picked up that ‘cool’ (literally) picnic shelter (screened) for $20 on clearance! After camping at Lake Tahoe and having to fight with the yellow jackets for our dinner it was fabulous to be able to cook and eat without uninvited guests.

We recently bought a little utility trailer (used) for a couple hundred dollars a month ago. We’re really excited at the camping abilities it gives us. Before we were limited to how much we could cram in our car with our kids- taking very much was a stretch. Now we can bring things like bikes and our picnic table and stuff. Very nice. Our trailer came with three spare tires. All three were pretty used- as well as the two on the trailer. One blew when I was picking up a washer and dryer an hour and a half away a couple weeks ago- I’d not brought the spares with me. So on our camping trip we brought the two remaining spares. We used the first one on the way out there:

We used the second on the way back. It’s time to replace them all.

Are we there yet?

Almost a teenager (ack!)

Loving sisters:

Cheese!

Mining for gold topaz

Topaz Mountain is a place I remember going several times with my dad camping. I was overcome a couple of times on our campout with a deep ache in my heart missing my dad. Being outdoors camping brings back some of my best memories of family time with him (and the rest of my family)- I’m hoping we’re building the same sorts of memories with our kids.

Some people think the desert isn’t beautiful-but you just have to know where to look: