Camping + Hopefest

Last week, we went up north and did some camping. I took two vacations days. The first vacation days taken for actual vacationing instead of for sick time in the past three years at least, if not five.

Boy, was that necessary.

There was a lot of knitting to the sound of the wind blowing in the trees.

It was heaven.

Keith had to drive back down to town Thursday night, so Emma and I were enjoying a little time alone in the woods. We decided to walk to Costco for dinner, because even though we were dry camping in the woods, we still were just two miles from Costco.

So, even though I haven't exercised at all in over three years {since I started taking Topimax this weekend} and have actually just sat on my butt, we walked two miles, uphill {both ways} to go to dinner.

We decided to go to the Chinese buffet because we just couldn't stand to walk just one store down to get to Costco.

It wasn't a bad choice. Yummy food. Nice fortune.

Sadly, we didn't get a fortune that said we'd suddenly get a ride home. We had to walk back. But, we did learn how your grandfather could actually say he walked to school {in the snow} uphill, both ways. He just left out the part where he also walked downhill both ways since, obviously, the way to school was hilly, as was ours back to the campsite.

The good news? The 4 mile hike and the 2 1/2 hours of exercise did not give me a headache.

Amazing!

I'm chalking it up to the 12 hours of sleep I was getting every night.

We got rain every morning! Most of the time, I was sleeping through it {or trying to} but the clouds and sprinkles were threatening throughout the morning and early afternoon. But, they would clear up and the afternoons were just beautiful.

Keith and I walked around Friday afternoon to try to find Lynx Lake. The path we took at first was not much of a path. But it did eventually meet up with a path with a little bridge.

Just a little farther down the path was Lynx Lake. It was a small little lake but a pretty site.

There were people fishing off to the side. There was one duck that was diving. When he'd come up, he'd be quite far from where he went down so he was swimming quite far under water.

Across the lake, there were some geese and some ducks and ducklings.

On the way back, I was able to get a picture of the birds nests that we were seeing all throughout the forest.

The next day was Hopefest, the reason we had camped in Prescott. The local CR was sponsoring the festival. John Baker was going to be speaking and they were going to be showing a preview of a new movie called Home Run. Very exciting things.

Emma and I walked around the square after we got there. She had never been to the court house before.

The Timeline reminded me of the one time when my Dad brought me up to Prescott when I was a teenager. I was probably 16 or so at the time {which means I was already dating Keith - yikes!} and we saw this timeline. There is another timeline too which is a world history timeline that is much longer that we also followed to see where it went and we made fun of it's evolutionary assumptions.

Then we went to Kendall's Famous Burgers & Ice Cream {behind the tents and signs}.

What, Ice Cream?

You had me at hello.

Dad may not remember it if I were to ask him about it {not that he can help that}. But, it is a treasured memory for me.

There were lots of booths. My favorite, and by favorite I mean the one that was most out of place, was the one for princess birthday parties. Don't you think Prince Charming is having a great time?

Emma and Me enjoying the afternoon

I should not take pictures of myself. I apparently cannot smile {naturally} when trying to push a button on a camera. That is too much multitasking for my poor little brain.

And, here is something I didn't know. CR has a mascot.

Who knew?

So, we were watching the crew setting up the stage. They fiddled with that tarp. It came out. It was put away. Back and forth. I'm not sure they were watching the weather because soon it was put away and the band was setting up. The announcement came that they were running 45 minutes behind. The big screen was gone {looks like no preview of the movie} but so was the tarp. Didn't any one see the monstrous clouds building up behind the court house?

We took cover because Keith predicted rain in 15 minutes.

He was right.

{There will be no living with him now}

It rained pretty good for a while. You can see how quickly it came. The difference between these two pictures is 10 minutes.

We watched the progress of the storm on smart phones. We hoped {beyond hope} that this storm would be the last and it would clear up...

Sadly, even after this storm lightened up, another one was coming behind it. Hopefest was canceled.

Bummer.

We met up with others who had also come up from the valley and we all commiserated over dinner. It gave us time to get to know each other even better. Silver lining.

That night, back at the campsite, we enjoyed a rousing game of "the radio game". Keith sat at the radio and tuned it across the dial as we all tried to guess the song and artist first. Hours of fun! Sadly, Emma won. Not only did she know the current songs/artists, she also knew way too many oldies/goodies. Spending hours on youtube has finally paid off.

Too bad it didn't actually involve any money.

All good things must come to an end. I don't know why. I'd rather that they didn't. But, Sunday, we enjoyed a lazy morning since we didn't have to vacate the premises until 2pm.

But, eventually, we did have to head back down the mountain. Luckily, the valley wasn't that hot so we weren't returning to the heat. More silver linings. I wonder if you collect enough of them, can you recycle them and get some money out of the deal?

The word which God has written on the brow of every man is Hope.
Victor Hugo, Les Misérables