Camping VS Motels

Dave Barry, a noted American writer and humorist best known for his weekly newspaper column, once said,   “Camping is nature's way of promoting the motel business.”   I take it from the quote, that Mr. Barry has not had a lot of positive experiences camping in the great outdoors.  If only he could see through our eyes the wonders of this Earth, I’m sure this would have never crossed his mind.

My wife and I have been happily full-timing for over a year now.  I have never regretted it for even a second.  Often we talk about our "poor" friends living in their nice big homes with no wheels attached.  We worry that they will rarely get the opportunity to explore all that this world has to offer.  In a way, I can’t blame them, after all, who will look after the house while they are gone?  Then there is all the packing and unpacking if they want to stay away for any length of time at.  For us, the task is easy.  No one has to watch our house while we are away, because our house is towed behind us.  We don’t have to worry about the packing part because it is always already done.

Perhaps the nicest thing of all is that if we have a change in jobs, we don’t have to worry about selling the house (especially in this market) and buying another.  I know that not everyone owns a house, but even those that rent usually have to sign a long term lease. Therefore, they have to time their moves “just right,” or worry about forfeiting their deposit. 

For us, live is fun!  We love to travel and explore as much territory as we can.   I can’t help but think of all the sights that we enjoyed in the first two days of travel from Nevada to the Midwest.  I suspect that we saw more beautiful scenery than most people see in a decade of vacations.  I sincerely hope that everyone will have the opportunity, sometime in their lives, to do what we are doing.  I think that the opening quote should say, "Camping is nature’s way of promoting beauty in its purest sense."  Happy Trails!

 

Cave Lake State Park Picture Blog

When we first arrived, we checked out the campground near the lake, but it was full.  It's always the first one to fill up.  Cave Lake offers hiking, fishing, boating and camping.

Next, we went to Elk Flats Campground and claimed a spot.  There's not a bad one to be had.  It's a beautiful campground with stunning views.  The elevation is high enough to make the temperature comfortable, even in July.

Ready for a picnic, we drove back over to the lake.  Of course we're not ones to settle for a designated picnic area, so we found a dirt road, followed it for 1.5 miles and found a great little stream and waterfall to enjoy.

After our picnic, we enjoyed a little trout fishing at the lake.

As the night air got cool, we went back to set up camp.

Finally, we topped off our perfect day with a cup of hot cocoa.  We LOVE Cave Lake, and would recommend it to anyone who's thinking about checking it out.  Happy Trails!

Friends Don't Let Friends Roast Marshmallows!

Dean, the husband

Shalane, the wife

We had a couple of our “city” friends from Las Vegas visit us this past Sunday.  It was wonderful to see them again and catch up on what has been going on in their lives.  We were excited to show off the area where we are currently staying and decided to take them down by the creek to roast some hotdogs.  My wife wanted to start the fire and asked me for some paper.  I reached into my wallet and gave her some.  I told her that I wanted to be impressed by her fire-making abilities, so I gave her a little bit of a handicap.  Handicap?!  He gave me a one by two inch receipt and a handful of weeds.  To say the least, it took me a few minutes to get the fire going.  As a matter of fact, I finally told him to go get me some REAL paper, so he brought back a small wad of toilet paper.  Sometimes he thinks he‘s SO funny.

Eventually, lunchtime turned into dinnertime, and she was able to get the fire started. See what I mean?  Hilarious, Babe!   Once the hot dogs were cooked and devoured, it was time for dessert.  Now, we had chocolate chip cookies baking in the solar oven back at camp, but our friends (we’ll just call them Ginger and Gilligan to protect their identities)  decided that they wanted to roast some marshmallows.  ‘Ginger’ took the roasting fork and started working on turning the marshmallows a golden brown.   I was glad she wanted the marshmallows, because, even though I’m not a huge fan, it just doesn’t seem quite right to have a roasted hot dog and not follow it up with a roasted marshmallow.  At first, it looked as if the marshmallows where just too far away from the fire.  ‘Gilligan’ kept insisting that they were only going to get hot and never get toasted.  ‘Ginger’ then put them down next to the fire, and suddenly, one of the four slid into the fire.  This only seemed to make matters worse, as one by one the poor defenseless marshmallows met their demise.  Now, only one remained, and my wife had the honor of eating the only survivor.  By the way, my wife described the lone survivor as “perfect.”  No, I described it at delectable!  Nice work, Ginger!

Ginger now felt confident that she could try again and this time successfully transform these soft, white cubes of sugary bliss into to a treat of golden perfection.  She loaded four more onto the stick and started the task of recreating that magical combination of stick, fire, and marshmallow.  Gilligan was then given a plate by Ginger and instructed to catch any flying food coming off the roasting fork.   HA!  Okay, now he IS being funny! That‘s pretty much what happened, though.  Gilligan was poised and ready to rescue any unruly marshmallows.   Again, the same techniques were employed.  Alas, it soon became apparent that the same outcome was about to occur, so quickly, Ginger removed the badly damaged globs of goo from the fire and rested them on the awaiting plate.  (Note the picture that accompanies this post.)  I am happy to report that all ended well.  Every bit of sticky stuff that was not clinging to the plate was enjoyed, and our friendship continued.  (At least I hope so, after they read this blog. This is, after all,  the reason why we used fictitious names! lol)

Anyhow, this ended a perfect afternoon, with perfect friends, a perfect wife, and not so perfect marshmallows.  Hey, a guy can’t have EVERYTHING you know.  :O)   Hey!  That’s not how it ended!  We came back to camp, ate our chocolate chip cookies, drove out to Spring Valley, took a walk out to the dam and then came back and said goodbye so that Ginger and Gilligan could get back to Vegas.  THAT was the end of a perfect day.