LABOR DAY WEEKEND...

Well, we went camping for Labor Day again. It's a tradition that we have with other campers in our neighborhood. Plus a couple of other times each summer.

We camped in the same spot as the past couple of years. Clyde Creek, up by Strawberry Resevoir. Up high for the good weather but not too far away from home. Sorry, we forgot to take pictures. Really, we took the cameras but didn't bother to take any pictures. Go figure.

We went up Friday afternoon and set up camp. Janet, Amanda, Sarah and me. Eric didn't come because of work. He's got two jobs right now. He works at Macey's on the graveyard crew and at Blackjacks Pizza on weekends and some evenings during the week. Anyway, we got to camp with plenty of sunlight to set up. We were surprised by an extra camper in our camp. It was the Biorgi's. They used to live in our ward but still have contact with us through neighbors that they work with. That evening we ate and visited with our neighbors.

Saturday was bright and sunny and we (Sarah, Amanda and I) went down to the Lake and did some fishing. Actually Amanda just laid out in the sun by the water. Sarah want to play with the crawdads so Janet gave us a chicken leg and I tied it to some fishing line and put it out in the water. Just about 20 feet out in the water. Every couple of minutes we would drag the leg back in very slowly and the crawdads didn't want to let go. We would get the leg within a couple of feet of the shore and then yank it quickly onto the shore. We usually got about 3 or 4 crawdads onto the shore and Sarah would scramble to catch them before they crawled back into the lake. We forgot to bring a bucket for her to keep them in, so she made little pens out of rocks along the shore. She played with those crawdads for a couple of hours while I watched my pole. I thought that I would be skunked, but just before I gave up a fish took the bait. I pulled in an 18 inch cutthroat trout. But I couldn't keep it. The rules state that cutthroats between 14 and 24 inches long must be released. It's a breeding thing I think. Too bad too. It was a nice fish. Wish I'd thought to bring my camera to prove it. We were pooped by that time so we went back to camp and had dinner and visited some more. That night I came back to the house to watch the BYU football game and be home for church in the morning.

Sunday I didn't get back to camp until 4 or 4:30 in the afternoon. When I got there Janet said that it had rained pretty hard there just a couple of hours before. While we were setting up to prepare dinner the clouds began to thicken up and it began to rain again. This time it rained for 2 and half hours solid. Not just a shower, but rain, hard and steady. Luckily we have a shelter that we set up for our kitchen area on these camps. It's about 12x20 and about 10 feet tall. It was okay as long as the rain came straight down. Janet and a couple of the others cooked chicken and made salads for dinner that night. One of the families tents began to leak and they were ready to head home when the Biorgi's offered the back of their trailer to them. It worked out perfect. Everyone had a dry and warm place to sleep that night.

Monday dawned sunny and warm again. After a nice breakfast we (Janet and I) borrowed a wheeler from on of our neighbors and drove down to a visitors center for the state park just a couple of miles down the road. While we were on the paved road a county sheriff's deputy stopped us and warned us that we weren't supposed to be on the road with an atv. I explained that the pit toilet that we usually use was closed and locked. He didn't think that was a good enough excuse. I asked if there was a back road or trail that led back to Clyde Creek and he answered negatively, but he would allow us to get back to the camp "this once." How nice of him. The atv was licensed and had lights, maybe not turn signals, but I thought we were safe. Oh well, we were given his reprieve or leave or whatever. We got away.

We spent that day riding wheelers and enjoying each others company. We packed up at about 4pm and headed home to the heat. It was supposedly the hottest Labor Day weekend in more than 50 years. It was in the mid to upper 90's everyday down in the valley. Up where we were it was in the 80's on Saturday and probably only the low 70's on Sunday because of the rain and clouds. But on Monday it was sunny and maybe 80 all day long. It was a beautiful weeken all-in-all.