Brian's spoiled weekend

We have guests at the moment. Dawn and Sean have returned to the States from their worldly adventures and are staying with us. As customary with our visitors, we like to think of fun things to do. This time we offered a camping trip. A campground camping trip. In September we tortured Dawn with car camping, meaning no bathroom, no other people, just us and the wild.

So we went round and round with ideas on where to go. We finally landed on Lake Havasu. It is on the border of California, and is a dammed part of the Colorado River. Then we though that we should rent a boat. Yeah, and a wakeboard, yeah, yeah, this was going to be awesome. So we decided we would leave Friday afternoon, get a site, and rent a boat all day Saturday.

Well as Friday approached things started to fall apart. For one, the temps were dipping into the low 80's on the weekend. Kinda sucks for water sports. Then Greg hit us with the one thing that collapsed the whole plan. The water temp in the lake was 64 degrees. WHAT?! Well I wasn't going to go in the water and Dawn wasn't going to go in the water, so maybe we should reconsider. Brian was pissed. PISSED, like pouting and having a tantrum.

Back to the map. Where to now. How about South? Well the nights were chilly north and south and east and west. No one likes to camp in cold.

Greg recommended heading to Canyon Lake and kayaking. Good idea. Only an hour away, warm day, warm night, OK lets go.
We decided to make it a one night camping trip. I was happy about this because Doug Benson was in town. Yeah, so we all went out to see him Friday night. Good times.

Saturday we piled into the truck and headed out. When we finally reached the campground we felt nothing but disappointment. This campground was tiny and crowded with a bunch of red necks. Ugh.

OK so now what. Brian was fuming, his whole weekend was crumbling before him. All he wanted to do was camp. I suggested we camp at Lost Dutchman SP, it was nearby and beautiful and we could drive the Apache Trail after we set up. On the way to the park a big horned sheep ran across the road ahead of us. I have yet to see one in the state and had no idea they lived in that area. It was very cool and made up for some of the poo luck we had had.

So we ended up at Lost Dutchman, not too crowded, beautiful backdrop, and we were officially camping. We took the journey along the Apache Trail for the rest of the day and made it back for dinner.



I awoke to the sounds of Great-horned Owls calling to each other in the early morning. Sweet.


After packing up to head home I took Sean on a tour of Liberty. We were lucky enough to catch Joe there (the eagle trainer) and he flew Phoenix the Golden Eagle for us.

Baby Barn Owl

Phoenix landing

Baby Great-horned Owls

Even though Brian's weekend wasn't full of wake boarding and wild boat parties, we still managed to have a great night of camping and got to show off the beauty of AZ.

Thanks to Sean for all the pics. We were lame and took no pictures. So to Sean's credit, all the photos are his.

-Nina