July 13, 2008

Camping at Lake Morena

So,
I had my first optometrist's appointment ever on Friday. My eyes aren't bad, I just have a hard time staring at the computer all day. So, I will be getting glasses for that in 7-10 business days. I'm happy... my eyes are fine at the beginning of the week, but by the end of the week I can't see anything because my eyes are so strained.

We went camping this weekend with Tyler and Emilie. We drove out to Lake Morena on Friday. The beginning of the trip looked like it was going to be the worst camping weekend ever. My eyes were so strained that I literally couldn't see the road to get to the camping site. I needed to sleep very badly.

Now I understand that there is a definite camping "culture" and that if you don't camp, you may not always know the "accepted" way of going about doing things. However the basics are told to you upon check-in. At this particular campground quiet hour starts at 10pm and campfires are supposed to be out at 11pm. It's pretty simple. Of course there are lots of little things that you pick up on during the course of camping (like don't shine your light on other people's tents at night, don't walk through someone elses site, etc..) but if you are an inexperienced camper you usually stand out as such and people usually overlook minor blunders or will politely let you know that you are being rude. Our neighbors simply did not belong out-of-doors and should never go camping again.

As I said, quiet hour started at 10 and campfires were to be out at 11. The four of us went to bed probably just after 11:00. We attempted to fall asleep dispite our NOISY neighbors for awhile... they let off an air horn at 1:30 in the morning, we asked them nicely and not very nicely to shut up... at 2:30 when I was finally able to fall asleep they were still going strong. The next morning the adults at the campsite allowed their children to taunt us in Spanish for asking them... telling them to be quiet. They proceeded to hover near our campsite and loudly talk about us and how rude/stupid WE were... in Spanish... like we couldn't understand them. (Although Aaron had spoken to them in Spanish the night before. We talked to the rangers about them and dispite the fact that they had 17 people in a campsite with a max of 8 people, apparently there was nothing that they could do unless they were overly noisy during the day... since there are no rangers available at night to witness the atrocity of this family.

So... we moved. Accross the campground. To a site that was not nearly as nice or shady as the one we had previously been occupying. Let me tell you... It. Was. AMAZING! We ended up with some of the nicest neighbors ever. They had a brindle Pit Barrell and another dog that was a mix of probably everything in the world, but very nice. Sawyer loved playing with them. One of the guys was a swim coach for Monte Vista and had been one of the founding coaches of the Heartland Swim Association. They loved Sawyer and came over to share dog treats with him. We all had a great time. I saw a wild toad for the first time ever and even got to hold the little guy for a while. He was pretty scared so we let him go after not too long but he was the coolest, cutest little thing ever. I also saw a wild tarantula for the first time as well. :) Not as cute but still pretty cool.

There was a fire about 3 miles south of where we were... I guess. We weren't listening to the radio or anything so all we really had was hear-say. It was pretty cool to watch the helicopters filling up at the lake though.

Although the trip ended up being a pretty good one, I'm not sure I would go back to that particular campground. It was a lot further than the local ones that we usually go to, and wasn't nearly as private. Anyway, the weekend turned out pretty cool and it was nice to spend some time with Emilie, Tyler and Sawyer as well.

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