The time has finally come!!! After months of waiting and planning (sporadic get together's and Pinterest surfing) it's time to take off to cooler climates, rocky roads and the peacefulness of quiet solitude.
This year we opted to head back to Colorado but after a couple of years of exploring and enjoying the Silverton area we opted to try something new and head towards Colorado Springs.
Our morning getaway was delayed by an hour due to our camping buddies desire to try and help rescue a skittish dog in the Fry's parking lot, the dog had obviously been homeless for quite some time and would not allow anyone close to her. Hopefully she will be helped and homed.
Once on the road it was a long day of driving....
After hitting construction delays just outside Flagstaff where we had pulled off to make a quick picnic lunch, we continued northward on into Utah. This was the first time that the kiddos had been to the Valley of the Gods!!
We had camp set up by 7:30pm and it was 90 degrees outside, thankfully there soon was ample shade to help keep us cooler.
While trying to setup the stovetop to cook dinner it wasn't "getting a secure connection to the propane tank". Mike said "If it won't go deep enough spit on it and stick it back in." - This became a running joke through out the entire camping trip!
Amanda (The Adventure Wife) and I opted to try Thrive dinners (freeze dried foods) this go round. We haven't figured out how cost effective it is but doing this certainly saved on campsite prep time, clean up time and saved enormous amounts of space in the dry food storage as well as the ARB fridges. Tonight we gave the Gumbo a try. I found the recipes for all the dinners via Pinterest - search -Thrive, meals in a jar, freeze dried, dehydrated. The gumbo recipe called for canned clams and we opted to trade that out for canned chicken, mostly due to the cost but also because we all like chicken!! Aside from the can of chicken we used canned diced tomatoes (due to Thrive being out of stock on their Freeze dried ones) or rather Tomato Sauce for this one cause the cans looked exactly the same when Amanda pulled them out of her pantry to pack, lol - and 1/2 lb of frozen shrimp - which defrosted by the time we got to cooking dinner, another reason why we decided we were having Gumbo tonight. I cut back on the spices (peppers) due to the fact that none of us are big into SPICY food. Even with cutting back on all the peppers it will need to be cut back even more, cause it was still SPICY!! The flavor was wonderful and we all agreed that we would add this recipe to the camp cookbook!
The night was hot enough that we slept with all the windows open on the tents, on top of everything and at 5am we threw a sheet over the two of us. The only sounds in the night were those of the crickets chirping the dark sky lullaby.
If you'd like to see more great pictures and about the day from someone else's perspective head over to:
The Adventure Wife
