4th of July Camping - Continued

One thing we had to deal with this trip was something we RARELY ever deal with and that was MOSQUITOS!!! I guess because of all the water around, they were out in full force!! Luckily, I always keep a can of Cutter's in the camper and it was well used this trip!!

But what we didn't have to deal with all weekend were firecrackers!! Never heard a one the entire time we were there and that's unheard of!! So that means I slept well, right??? Not this time!! I have no idea what the problem was but I didn't sleep well any of the nights!! It would take me FOREVER to fall asleep and then if I woke up in the middle of night, I was unable to go BACK to sleep!! Bummer!! At least I was able to sleep in, in the mornings!!

We tended to leave on the ATV right after breakfast and it seemed most of the other people, would wait till close to noon to head out so we'd have a lot of the trails to ourselves most days. There was still a lot of snow left on the mountains!

I thought it might be fun to get off the ATV and take a hike but after we stopped and saw that the hike was 4 miles in, I changed my mind!!

We had taken a pretty nice trail for quite a while and back towards the bottom, we saw a stream that we had to either go through, or turn around and go all the way back the way we came!! This stream was pretty wide but you really can't tell how deep it is until you try it!! So Glenn gunned the ATV and off we went through the stream - it was deep!!! VERY DEEP!! My rear end got wet if that tells you anything!!! It's a good thing Glenn is an excellent driver - he drove as fast as he could through it and it died, just as were climbing out of the stream!! We were wet and laughing and shaking at the same time - boy - you just never know what you're going to get into on some of these trails!! The ATV had to dry out before it would start so we just hung around there for a while and soon about 6 bikers came - they yelled across the stream to ask us how deep it was so we told them. One brave guy decided to try it - luckily he was a TALL guy because the bike slipped twice and he caught it by putting his feet down - he was one soaked guy by the time he got to the other side!! And no, the others one wouldn't try it!!

One really nice trail was called Lily Pond Trail - when we got to the bottom, here was this beautiful lake almost completely covered with lily pads!! It was a neat spot but hard to capture on the camera!

Towards the top of this trail was an old mining town with lots of falling down log cabins AND mining equipment!! We stopped and had our lunch here and walked around all the equipment, trying to decide how they got these huge pieces of machinery up this mountain!! I suppose by ox or donkeys - or maybe they brought the things up in pieces and then put them together!! Hard to imagine life in the early 1900's in the mountains!!

I love this picture of the falling down cabin with the tree growing right in the doorway!!

Late afternoons were spent sitting in front of the stream with drinks and books in hand with LOTS of good appetizers!! And after dinner, we would take a ride on the ATV and look for elk or deer in the mountains..............a relaxing, peaceful weekend!!

We packed up Monday morning to head out with a list of things we had forgotten (and which are ALREADY in the camper for next time) and lots of great memories!!

We stopped at the top of Cottonwood Pass to check the trailer and I snapped this picture - the kids were sure having fun in the snow!!

Another great camping trip!!