Amazing Camping

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Although Kipp is not that fond of camping, life in the outdoors is getting better....we finally have an air mattress that stays up through the night, a stove and pans for real food, a huge tent where he can actually stand up, and life is getting better. We were headed up to see some Ice Caves on July 3, but had no camping reservations. This was more a last minute trip for us. I figured if we could get something great, if not, it would be a longish day, but we could drive home...it was only a couple of hours. The person at the ranger station I was called about the ice caves said that Gold Basin had some first come-first serve campsites, but get here early since it was a holiday weekend. We couldn't leave Thrs night because we had bible study and we were hosting that night. So we got the van packed with everything except the cooler and our clothes, and got up at 6:40am. We left the house by 7:10 (I woke Kyler up to get dressed and he got his pajamas off, then fell asleep again on his bed....naked...luckily Kipp went in to find out what was taking him so long!). We drove through McDonalds, and made it up to the camp area by 9am! There is no ranger station, so we asked the host campers about sites. He said he thought there might be a few. We asked him what was good. He said all the good ones by the river are taken. We asked him what was good of what was left. He said maybe 22 was OK. We drove over and 22 was completely open! It had a reservation for the night before, but the people were already gone! It was a gorgeous site! Large, private, and beautiful. We had most of our camp set up by 9:45am! This place had new bathrooms, with real mirrors, and even had free showers! What a treat!
I had gotten some flowers the week before, so we brought those, and the candles the kids helped to make, and so our table looked great. The weather was beautiful. We walked around some, had lunch, and then headed up to the Ice caves/fields. We came back and just relaxed all night. It was a full campground, with a sign up by the time we went for a walk about 11am. We couldn't have asked for a better place. We made Slugs, our new favorite dessert (thanks Claudia!) that we learned about at Cub Scout camp the week before.
This is the view straight up from our tent. It was a warm evening, although it did finally cool off. We had a relaxing morning, made a few more cinnamon sugar slugs, and headed out around the whole Mountain Loop Highway. Didn't know that 15 miles of it were gravel, but it was fairly easy going. Made it back in time to clean up and go to our friends' house tonight for fireworks. What a great day!