We just came back from camping on Monday, our annual Great Baisn trip.....It is so beautiful up there. I will have to say with it being so cold lately that we were all a little afraid of what the weather would be, but we packed for five and included an extra pair of shoes anyway.....

• Day One: we left at about 7:30am, and started our four hour drive to the 'mighty' Great Basin. Once there we headed to the 9500ft camp ground that we always stay at, we knew when we got there it might be a problem because the mountain was covered in snow. Sure enough it was a problem.....'our' spot was covered in almost two feet of snow.....boo hoo...so sad, becuase I love waking up at the base of the cirque.....see above.....so we move further down the mountain to another camp ground. My heart actually ached that we couldn't camp at the top. Set up tent and three air mattresses - funny story, will tell more on day two. Had tin-foil dinners for dinner.......yummy! We always eat well while we are camping.
• Day Two: Jason and I woke up refreshed on our foot high air matress and look over and both of the kids air mattresses were flat as a pancakes they might as well have been sleeping on the ground.......he he he....needless to say the one air mattress had poped and the other had a slow leak, the air pump broke, and Jason had to inflat the air mattress every night with just the air in his lungs, can't help but laugh at that one. We went exploring the west desert for nine hours.......Jason's idea......I will have to give you an incredible highlight of that day though. We, just by chance, drove to the base of a hugh cave in the Moriah Mountains. It was about half way up the 'mountain' and spectacular looking, I look at Jason and Jason looks at me and we both agreed that we should take the kids and do the hike.....after all it didn't look too bad...and I knew in my heart there would be Indain ruins in that cave. Why do things always look sooooo much easier from the bottom.....you see where this is going right? The 'little' hike ended up being about 4 miles up round trip with an elevation gain of about 3000 - 3500 feet. All of the kids cried and thought they were going to die at numerous parts of the hike, and in my heart I thought I was too. The tallis under my feet slipped with every step and one step ended up being two. The small rocks at the bottom were boulders up close and what we thought were bushes were trees that we had to crawl under and through. We questioned our judgement about halfway up but realized that we were too far at this point to turn back. By the time we finally made it up there I realized that I would do it again (without the kids), it was full of Indian ruins. I was in utter awe of what I was seeing and cried like a baby. The homes were constructed of pine needles, mud, and old wood, not much left of them but there was enough for me. Nothing was touched and it was left the way we found it. Our camera was broken but the whole thing is video taped. We stayed for awhile to soak in what we were looking at and than prayed for our safety on the way down the mountain, we knew it would be worse going down. Jason would take one kid down in his arms about fifty feet and than go up for another one, as you can see we made it! The 'little' hike took 3 1/2 hours. I thanked God for letting us arrive safely. But my heart aches that we didn't spend more time. I found out that the Indian ruins were probably of the Freemont Indians which occupied the area from 1200 - 1295 AD. The rest of the day isn't nearly as eventful as that, in fact the rest of the year won't be as eventful as that. I did have to mention to Jason a few times that I felt like I was in the movie 'The Hills Have Eyes'. We were literally on a dirt road ALL day. My sweet, adoreable Jason always takes the road less taken, how can you get angry about that unless you are on hour 6 of the road less taken. Isaac kept saying, can we go home? Please can we go home? Jason kept telling him we were taking the long way home....he he he.....Packed a lunch and treats in the car for the day....we had steaks for dinner with fire baked potatoes, why does everything taste better when you are camping?
• Day Three: We went to Ely to look for a new pump, could find a store that would sell one....he he he...still laughing about Jason having to blow one up every night. We roamed around on the other side of Great Basin, explored the remains of mines (they are ALL over) and resued a calf. Funny story...we are heading to Ely and there are cows all over, there was a calf on the side of the road on the outside of the fence and the mother cow was on the inside of the fence right next to the calf. We all noticed and hoped that it would find its way back in the fence soon to be with mommy cow. Sever hours later when we were driving back to camp we drove by the calf and mommy and they were in the same place still but no other cows were around them this time they had all moved on. Baby still on outside of fence mommy still on inside of the fence. Jason is all distraut that he calf is going to run out in traffic or starve but drives on, 10 -15 miles later Jason is still quite and looks distraut, I look at him and say, 'You want to go back and help the cow?' Quickly he says,'do you mind?' well of course I don't mind....WTH does he think, the fact he waited 15 minutes was funny, if I hadn't said anything would he wait until we got back to camp to turn around and help the cow? So we head back and rescue the calf back on to his side of the fence. Calf and mommy run into the field, we felt liekwe had saved the day......or the meat we would be eating in a year. Not to make fun, but we had hamburgers for dinner....I am still laughing.
• Day Four: It rained all night long, but we figured it would and covered everything with the two tarps we brought. When I opened the tent to go out that morning the rain was at a drizzle and fog covered the camping site to the point that you couldn't see 10 feet in front of you. It was beautiful...We went on a 7 mile hike with the kids around the mountain to the other side, after the hike the day before this one was cake. It was level and the veiws were incredible. They claim that on a clear day you can see for 100 miles, I will agree with that. Had a picnic at Wheeler Peak, the snow was almost gone and someone had taken 'our' camping spot. Jason took Isaac and Clarice and took a 3 1/2 mile hike down the mountain, Chelsea wouln't go so I headed down the mountain in the 4Runner to meet them at the bottom. I parked and left Chelsea and headed up the trail to meet them. Than we took another drive on roads less taken....fun! Really it was fun, we found more caves that we didn't have time to hike to that really didn't look that bad....you have heard that one before... :~) For dinner we had Bratwurst and fire baked potatoes.......yummy.
  Day Five: We decided to go home early. We packed up and headed home, it was a little sad but we knew we would be back. We weren't able to hike to the the Bristlecone forest due to snow on the trails up to four feet, that was sad for me the trees are astounding, thousdands of years old, literally.