On May 13-15th, our family was able to take our first camping trip of the year! We had originally planned to go camping back in April for my side of the families reunion, but when bad weather threatened our fun weekend, plans got changed to having a family dinner at our home in Payson instead. So we were thrilled when we were finally able to find a weekend on the calendar where the weather cooperated so that we could finally go! We lucked out too and were even able to convince our good friends the Anderson’s to come with us! We always have such a fun time with them!
We ended up leaving Payson about 2:30 on Friday, and then drove the 2 hours to Buckhorn Draw which is near the Wedge overlook. And surprisingly enough the Wedge was actually pretty packed for it not being a holiday weekend. In fact, I started getting a little worried that we wouldn’t find a good campsite. But in the end we ended up with an awesome one that was not only a bit further from the road, but also had quite a bit of vegetation! And gorgeous views of the canyon! And great places for the kids to climb and play! We loved it!
It took a bit of finagling to get the trailer leveled and where we wanted it, but after that things were pretty smooth sailing. Adam and I popped up the trailer while the kids helped unload the car and then the Anderson’s arrived and also got right to work getting their tent set up as well. Then we started a fire and worked on getting hungry tummies fed. Our family ended up bringing chicken salad sandwiches with chips and fruit, and then Katie and Eks brought hot dogs and biscuits to do over the fire. We spent the rest of the night sitting around the fire eating smores and trying to avoid little “no see’em bugs” that liked to bite you! We call them that because they are so tiny you can barely see them! It was my first time ever experiencing bugs at the Wedge and boy oh boy were they annoying. Poor little Ari was eaten alive to the point that some bites drew blood! We all felt so bad for her. But luckily we figured out pretty quickly that bug spray helped keep them away.
The kids loved exploring and climbing all over the rocks!
A view of our cute little camp site.
After dinner we put tired kids to bed and then the adults stayed up and talked until almost midnight. I ended up having to go and pump a bottle in our van (which we’d driven clear down the road to keep other campers from driving into our site late at night) and then hit the hay myself. It was a great first night camping!