Wahoo! Our anniversary finally came! Like I already explained, we decided we needed a good old fashioned camping trip this year, and that's exactly what we got! On Thursday, after we had finished up climbing, we dropped Cooper off at devin's parent's so Brandon could come get him when he was off work. It was so hard to leave him behind! We knew he was in good hands, though! We also knew it would make for a more relaxing trip to not have to stress and worry about Coop the whole time. So, we were off!
D A Y 1 / /
We woke up pretty early Friday morning and basically jumped in the car and left. We had gotten everything together the night before, just for that reason. The drive went by pretty fast and we (well, just me. Devin listened) watched a movie on the way down, too.
We stopped in Torrey for gas and lunch. It's the last town before the turn off for Boulder Mountain, and we pulled right into this little place called Slackers for some burgers and fries. This corvette was parked out front and I couldn't help myself from snapping a photo - it fit right in! The food was delicious, and the soft serve was even better. We were anxious to get up the mountain and find a camping spot, though!
Since neither of us were too familiar with the area, we were mostly winging it. We didn't want to be in a campground and we wanted some privacy from other campers, too. We were also trying to avoid the big RV's because we didn't want to put up with generator's going all night and day! The first place we pulled into was really nice, but there was a lot of open space and it looked like it would get full really fast, so we kept looking. After about 2 hours of driving around, up Hell's Backbone Road and Burr Trail, we ended up back at the first spot we had considered, on the mountain. We figured if we just went back a little further then someone would dare tow a trailer, we'd be good - and we were right! It took a bit of maneuvering on Devin's part to dodge all the rocks in the road, but we made it with plenty of sunlight left to set up camp!
This was the first chance we've had to set up the screen tent we bought about a year and a half ago and we were both nervous that it would be really complicated and too big, but it ended up being really simple, and the size it great! The screen tent is so nice for staying out of the sun and out of bugs, although we didn't have any bug problems on this trip. We got started on dinner right away, and ended the night with some much anticipated s'mores! We spent a lot of time around the campfire on this trip, and that resulted in a lot of s'mores experimenting - which you really can't go wrong with!
D A Y 2 / /
We woke up pretty early on Saturday morning naturally so we got up and made some breakfast. We're still learning how to cook on our stove, so it made for some burned bacon, but we got enough food in our system to head over to Capitol Reef for some hiking! The weather was beautiful, and we seemed to have gotten in there pretty early, seeing as how we were expecting a huge crowd for the holiday weekend! We decided to do a hike up to The Tanks - they are these huge natural water tanks, and they were really pretty but hard to get good photos of! There were lizards everywhere, and I learned how much I don't like hiking in sand! We started passing a lot of people on our way back from the hike, so we knew we had beat the crowd! We headed over to the visitor's center and bought some famous Capitol Reef salsa!
We spent a lot of time looking for a good print to take home, since we started collecting them on trips last year (so far we've got jackson hole and cedar breaks prints), but we were having no luck! On our way back to camp, we stopped in Torrey again and checked every gift shop, trading post and art gallery and still nothing! We stopped for dinner at a restaurant across the street from Slacker's (where we stopped for lunch the day before) called Red Cliff Grill - now, I don't know if we were just totally starved, but we both had such amazing meals! I ordered a burger and Devin got a personal pizza and we both polished off our food in no time. I love small town diners and restaurants like that - they always make the best food!
We got back to camp with a few hours of sunlight to spare, so we cleaned up around camp, gathered firewood and built a massive fire, and stayed out as late as we could. We slept so well on our air mattress and never got cold, which is something I was a little worried about, being only May. We were also lucky enough to be there during the full moon! It was huge and bright and beautiful this night.
D A Y 3 / /
Sunday! Our actual anniversary! We had much better luck with our breakfast cooking this morning and once we finished our pancakes (story: we realized while we were in capitol reef that we had forgotten syrup when we saw some in the little store there. we picked some novelty peach syrup and as we were walking to the car with the syrup and some creamed honey (so yummy!), Devin realizes that the syrup says "made in Orem, UT" our hometown! haha oh well, it was delicious anyway!), we drove down to Escalante. We stopped on our drive over to admire the view of the Grand Staircase National Monument - it's absolutely gorgeous out there! Next, we headed down to the Calf Creek trail head and took off! I was so excited for this hike, and had a lot of energy starting out - I should have paced myself better because I didn't realize how long the hike was! It was pretty hot outside and there was much more sand to hike through this time, but we made it! And it was so worth it! The falls were so beautiful and we even got to watch a few guys rappel down the waterfall! Of course Devin had to go up to them as they were packing their gear up and ask them about it, and now he's convinced he will do it some day! We stayed at the falls for awhile and Devin was brave enough to jump in and swim! We had some snacks and then headed back out before the falls were covered in shade. We definitely got there at the right time to have it in the full sun for awhile! I was sort of a wimp on this hike, but I'm still glad I did it! My calves are still sore, and because we forgot sunscreen, we got burned really bad on the hike out! Me more than Devin, or course! We also began to realize pretty quickly that we did NOT pack enough water. On our drive back to Boulder, Devin had to pull over because I thought I would throw up and we both felt really sick. Dehydration :(
We decided to look around for a place to eat dinner, and remembered seeing a few diners back in town. We went into one restaurant, pretty desperate for some water. We sat down for about 15 minutes and nobody even acknowledged us. They weren't even that busy! It was awful, so we got up and left! The other place was closed, so we tried one last place, and luckily they were open! I drank so much water sitting there after we ordered our food, which in retrospect, probably made me more sick, but the food was good and it gave us the energy we needed for the rest of the evening! We got back to camp in the early evening and just tried to relax. Devin gathered more firewood and goofed around while I sat and sipped some water. Ugh, I felt so sick! I felt bad that I was being such a poor sport, but that sweet husband of mine was very understanding.
We got a big fire going early so we would have good coals for our tinfoil dinners - they turned out so delicious! We ate a bunch more s'mores, and ended the night with a movie on the laptop in the tent. It was perfect!
On Monday morning, we let ourselves sleep in a little bit before getting up to pack everything and head home. I was feeling worse, so it took us a little longer to get everything together, but once we got in the car, the drive seemed to go by pretty fast! We got home around 2:30 and had a few hours to unpack and shower, and around 5:30, we left for Park City to pick up our puppy! We met Brandon at a grocery store and Cooper was so excited to see us! I was so happy to have my little buddy back. We missed him so much and talked about him the whole trip, cooper would love this! - cooper would have had so much fun here! - it's too bad coop couldn't have come with us here, he would have loved it! He was so exhausted and so dirty - it was obvious that he had a great time with Riley, Koda and Bodie! We brought Brandon some Capitol Reef salsa for watching him for us and decided to stick around once he said he was going to be cooking some dinner! We headed up to this massive, gorgeous house in downtown PC and joined some other friends for some grilling! Whenever Brandon cooks, you just don't ask questions. Whatever it is, it's going to be delicious. And you're going to eat all of it, and talk about it for the rest of your life, because it's just that good. His burgers didn't disappoint! We had a lot of fun, as always with Brandon and his friends, but took off once we finished our food, because we needed to get home and get some rest!
Trip success.
