camping at Sliding Rock

This past weekend we camped overnight up by Sliding Rock in Alpine.  It was the first of many camping trips we have planned for this summer.  While growing up, Nate and his buddies used to camp up there a ton - they would even stash their sleeping bags in the bushes between visits because they came up so much.  So it was only fitting to go camping up there with those same friends and their wives.  A & B loved it up there.  I swear they could live outside. They spent their time throwing rocks in the pond, hiking around around, looking for bugs, playing with Rich & Kamilla's dog Sadie, and eating way too much junk food.

It was beautiful up there.  We lucked out with perfect weather the entire time other than a little wind during the night. 

Aiden "caught" his first fish (with a LOT of help from Jason).  He was so excited. Nate doesn't fish at all so we were happy our kids had a little exposure to fishing.

One of the coolest things up there is the huge bike jump into the pond.  Rich went down it a few times and it was awesome to watch.  We were happy he was willing to entertain all of us :)  I got it on the video below:

We also saw a lot of wildlife up there.  The place we camped isn't an actual campground...it's just in the middle of the hills...so of course there were animals all around. On the drive up we saw this tiny little fawn with no mommy deer around.  It let us get up close to take pictures and pet it so we thought it might be hurt or sick but by the time we went back to help it, it was already gone.

My parents had warned us that there were a lot of snakes up in those hills which made me a little nervous at first.  And they were right - we ended up seeing two snakes and hearing a rattlesnake in the bushes behind us.  This huge blow snake went right through our camp and Rich had no fear to pick it.  And surprisingly, after seeing that huge snake, I wasn't freaking out at all...and I was even able to spend the night there.  Guess I am tougher than I thought!  :)

We finished off the night with some camping musts - tin foils and smores.  We stayed up late talking around the camp fire and just hanging out.  Getting the kids to bed in the tent was the only challenging thing - they wanted to stay up all night long.  But overall it was so fun and we're looking forward to many more camping trips this summer!