Camping, Fourth of July Style

Several weeks ago, Eric, our youngest son, invited us to go camping with him and April.  Nicholas was going to be with him for a couple of weeks, and he wanted to take him camping.  Nicholas is eleven years old and is autistic.  He seems to be pretty smart but once he focus on something or some activity, it is hard to get him to change his thoughts to something else.  At times he is rude and inconsiderate. Other times he is polite and thoughtful.

They secured a camping spot at Hill lake up Ephraim canyon for July 4 through July 8.  It was about five miles east of Ephraim.  We consented to go and meet them in Ephraim at two in the afternoon.  We were going to stay the night of the fourth and come home the next day which was on Friday.  They were going to stay a couple of more days.

On the morning of the fourth, we began the preparations, of getting our bedding, food, snacks, camp stove, extra clothing, tooth brushes, etc. ready.  We got our tent out which we haven't put up for over ten years.  Not sure if we could remember how to put it up. That at times gets a little stressful of why don't we take that, or we are taking to much.

We left in just enough time to eat and be at our meeting place at two.  A few phone calls on the way helped to locate them.  We had our lunch at a fast food place.  Carol had a foot long and I had a burrito.  It was pretty good.  We purchased a few more food items  before we left Ephraim.

We followed Eric and April.  They had a small four wheeler in the van and pulled another one on their trailer.  There were lot of wild flowers we passed going up the canyon.   I would stop for pictures on the way back.  We went through several camping spots.  Eric couldn't remember which camping site he reserved.  We finally found the camp site which had some good afternoon shade.  We unloaded everything and put most of it on the picnic table.  We had quite a time finding a place that was fairly level and large enough for our tent.  The tent is fairly large and has quite a few poles that were to hold the tent up.  we laid it out and Eric put the stakes in at each corner. Through trial and error and suggestions by others we got it up.

Eric had his three dogs with him.

We took a few short rides down to the lake and up a short dead in rode to another camp site on Eric's four wheeler and Nicholas drove his little four wheeler.  It was about time for dinner.  We wanted to wait a little while longer.  Nicholas did not want to wait.  He kept asking how much longer and the answer to that question was a little while.  He wanted to know how long a little while was.  Finnally I told him one hour and set the timer on my cell phone for 55 minutes.  He asked about ten times during the count down.  The it was about every minute during the last five.  April prepared the hamburgers for us.  We hiked down to the lake and followed a trail around the left side of the lake.  We did some visiting and it was almost dark and time for bed.