We went camping!

I will post these pictures on the willden.org/gallery since my cute background shows up THROUGH the pictures!

This is a picture that I took on Saturday the 27th of September when we took our four wheelers and went up to Curtis Creek and spent the day enjoying the gorgeous scenery. I was disappointed because it was washed out but it still shows the beauty we enjoyed that day. The quakies were so fantastic. I had never seen them turn red before!!

When Ed found out that he was going to be in Kentucky for the whole month of October we decided we better camp while we could - it will be winter by the time he will be home for more than Friday night till Monday morning again. We headed back up to the Monte Cristo area with Grandpa Nielson on Wednesday the 1st of October. We camped at a new spot called Dry Bread Pond and it was a really nice campground. There are some really pretty camping spots in both Dry Bread Pond and Dry Bread Hollow. When we parked the trailer we didn't realize we were so close to the pond. Dad took this picture the next day of our camp site.We were disappointed that there were not more trails to four wheel on but we still managed several good rides. Ed took us up on Wednesday evening after work and got our camp all set up and then Thursday morning he headed back down to Clearfield to work. Dad and I slept in till about 9 am that morning and had a lazy breakfast when all of a sudden dad said "There's a moose!!". He was sitting so he had a good view of the hillside to the North. We both grabbed our camera's and headed outside to take some pictures. He hung around long enough for me to put my batteries back in my camera and let us snap pictures of him and then he headed back up into the trees just West of the pond.

Dad and I enjoyed Thursday - the sun was shining and it was a fantastic Fall day. We hopped on the ATV's and headed out to see where the trails led. We found a few other people camping but most of the area was empty. We followed the ATV trail to the North until it dead ended about two miles away. It was so funny - as we left the main dirt road and moved onto the ATV trail I noticed a 'jump' - very quickly I realized that they were speed bumps and they came every 1oo feet or so. Jamie thought the speed bumps were to see how fast you could go over them :-)

This is a view from the end of the trail on our first ride - we headed back down the trail, back past our campground and across the main highway to Dry Bread Hollow - we found a couple good prospective routes for later on and headed back to the trailer. We spent the afternoon eating, napping and reading in the sunshine. Very relaxing. We went on another nice long ATV ride down Dry Bread Hollow. I was following my dad at this point and stopped my bike to take a picture of this gorgeous alley of trees. Dad had just disappeared around the bend or else you would see him on the four wheeler on the road ahead of me. I think there are about 10 miles of trails on that side of the highway and it was a fun ride. Later on, we watched the moose as he showed up again that evening and dad and I both took more pictures. After dinner I was cleaning up the dishes and we were listening to the Palin-Biden debate when all of a sudden my trailer door opened...and there was Harley dog!!! And Kelly ...and Jamie. What a fun surprise. They decided at the last minute to come up and camp over night with us. We loved having them there. Jamie had gotten friday off so they were able to spend the night and all day the next day with us - camping and chasing mooses and riding ATV's. I think the only thing they didn't get to do was find some real good 4-wheel drive roads to try out his fancy new tires (for his truck) on.
This is friend moose that came to visit each day - actually, each morning and each evening. He had white legs!! We decided his mother was the abominable snowman.

The night Kelly and Jamie came they could hear noises like the moose was moving through the brush or trees and actually thought maybe it was fighting with a bear or something. About five minutes later Kelly and Jamie could hear water splashing. Once they realized that was what they were hearing Kelly jumped on Ed's ATV and headed over to see what was going on. I ran around to the back of our trailer and jumped on my ATV, slowing down as I went past the front door to see if Jamie wanted to ride with me. She said no, she would stay behind with Harley. When we got over near the pond Kelly and I both could see that there were FIVE moose - the bull was on the hillside watching out for the others, one cow was closer to the water and one cow and the two calves were IN the water splashing around!! It was totally dark outside but Kelly had Ed's MAG flashlight and the headlights on our ATV's also showed us what was going on. They all took off across the top of the pond and into the trees - we watched them all disappear. It was sooooo neat.

Here you can see the moose as he heads down the hill to the pond for a drink of water. He really was not scared of people or of ATV's - he's put up with them all summer after all. Harley was such a good baby Thursday night. He slept up on the big queen sized bed in the back of the trailer with Jamie and Kelly and we didn't hear a sound out of him all night long. Friday morning Kelly took Harley for a ride on the ATV's...Harley was not impressed! Later on, Jamie and I headed out for a nice ride over on the Dry Bread Hollow roads - that main trail is straight South for about five miles. and then we continued down the main road. I could see a silver truck heading North on that road coming towards me and my first thought was - it's Kelly but then I thought - he couldn't have gotten ahead of us and the road doesn't connect in anywhere else. I started to pull over so it could get past me but then I realized he had already pulled way off the road and was waiting for me. I was trying to figure out how to flash at him that there was another four wheeler in my party behind me but she had disappeared (you hold two fingers up to show there are 'two' of you. All of a sudden I realized it WAS Kelly and Harley!! As we had ridden down the main trail I had led Jamie up and back down a couple of side trails - so Kelly had driven all the way down and was on his way back up to find us when we showed up. Jamie came a couple minutes later - she had stopped to see the baby lamb that was staying close to his mama who was dead...I think she wanted to put him on the 4 wheeler with her but he wouldn't get too close to her.


We chatted for a second and then I headed down the trail - I went about 500 yards and realized that Jamie wasn't coming so I stopped and waited and sure enough she shows up with a Harley on her lap. He had thrown a fit when 'mama' had shown up and he wanted to ride with her. He was literally on her lap and made the driving difficult. We slowly went on down the rest of the road and when I got there here comes Harley and Jamie just a truckin! She had finally forced him to sit behind her and he realized that he could stick his head out to the side and get the wind in his face. He loved it!! Four wheelin Harley dog!!We headed back to the camp area, and Harley got back in the truck with Kelly - they headed off somewhere else and we four wheeled back to the trailer. Grandpa told us all about how the moose had shown up again for about 20 minutes - the moose had wandered in and out of the pond area and then walked clear across the hill to the trees just west of our trailer. He said he could hear the moose huffing - or making a huffing noise as he walked.

About noon that same day, the moose came back. Kelly and Harley were still off trucking some where and Jamie grabbed her camera and took of running across the field to get some good pictures of the moose. I panicked just knowing the moose was gonna attack her and I hopped on the ATV to save her, hoping that the moose couldn't outrun a four wheeler! Of course she was fine and although she got within 150 feet of the moose he didn't attack. Later on dad built a fire and we enjoyed sitting around a campfire before they headed back home.

So I think the three of them had a great time and they headed back home about 2:30 that afternoon. Dad and I lay down for a nap at that time and my dad really slept good for a solid two hours. I worked on my indexing offline after about a twenty minute nap and got several hundred names indexed.

We sat and read for another hour - the clouds were building and it was looking like it was going to rain and finally started clearing up. We knew Ed was coming and we knew that Kecia and Glenn and Emma would be there soon too, but about 5:25 we decided to bundle up and go for another ATV ride. We got hats and gloves and coats on and I ran back into the trailer to grab my camera and I heard dad say, no hurry, they are here... and sure enough, the Gilliams had arrived. They unloaded the whole car full of Emma stuff !! It was amazing how much easier it was on Kelly and Jamie to pack and come up compared to Emma - But Emma was a darling and well worth all the work her mama and daddy had to do to come camping. Ed arrived just in time for dinner and the clouds kept moving in.


Glenn and Kec took Emma on a ATV ride and she loved it. Laughing and hollering all the way. We thoroughly enjoyed Emma and her parents Friday night. We had drug in some wood and built a fire that night and roasted marshmellows after dinner. We listened to the radio as BYU beat Utah State and fed marshmellows to Emma. That night she really didn't want to lay down and go to sleep but she finally made it...until about midnight. I heard her crying a couple of times and I heard her giggling a couple of times. Kecia said she was awake until about 4 am... she ended up in the bed with mom and dad the rest of the night !! That was a first for them too!

Saturday morning was a bust weather wise. It was rainy and wet and cold.... grandma and mama took Emma for a nother ride and I got to see how much she loved the ride. Kec was driving and I was holding her and she would stand on my leg and literally bounce as she oohed and laughed and giggled - it was soooo cute.
Poor Glenn was coming down with a head cold when they got there on Friday afternoon and it went from bad to worse. He actually sounded better Saturday morning after a night's sleep but pretty soon he was sounding hoarse and not good. Ed fed him a couple of Alka Seltzer's and they helped. We finally gave up on the weather and had lunch about 2 pm and then they packed up and headed home. We got packed up and were gone within an hour of them so we probably all got home about the same time. It was wet and rainy - 41 degrees on top of the mtn and warming up to 50 when we got to Layton. I am glad that it didn't snow on us.

Here is a short video taken Friday morning as Glenn slept and Emma looked cute in Grandpa Ed's hat.

The trip was so fun...My dad loved the camping and so did I. It wasn't too much fun for Ed but I am so glad he did this for me before he heads to Kentucky on Tuesday. It was great having my kids there and Ed and I decided we have been too selfish with our camping this summer and need to make sure we have camping time with all of our kids and grandkids next summer when it warms up again. Plan on it!