On The Road To Mammoth - A Quest for the Perfect Campsite

Ok. Holy crap!! It has been so long since I have been to my blog. Ok well that isn't true…I come and look at it all the time and think to myself, “wow…I haven’t updated since August 8th, I am a loser!” I promise you I am not a loser I have just had a ton going on. With going on vacation and then coming home from vacation only to have to leave again for an unexpected trip to Oregon in order to attend my grandpa’s funeral, it really takes a lot out of a girl. Not to mention I have some other stuff going on but you will just have to wait to hear more about that.

Anyways, I am finally getting back into a schedule so I decided I would come back and take care of my good old blog. Ok, where did we last leave off…? Oh that is right, I was headed to Mammoth for a camping trip with Danny, the kids (our dogs) and our good friends Tom and Sheila. I think this might be other multiple posting trip, I haven’t decided yet, I guess we will all just have to wait and see!! Hold your breath.

I have delayed long enough so lets just get started with the story already!! Danny told Tom and Sheila to be to our house at 4am, yep you heard me right, that is 4 in the morning!! Danny even forewarned Tom that pretty much the only way to upset me on a camping trip is to be late hitting the road. The reason you ask? I will OBSESS the entire time that we aren’t going to get the perfect spot because we didn’t leave right on time!! I know me obsess…crazy!! So needless to say Tom and Sheila pulled up just a minute or two after 4am.

Don't they look so happy to be there at four in the morning??

I must admit that Danny and I were still loading up a few things in the car when they got there. BUT in all fairness we, being the experience campers, had a ton of stuff to bring and we were on the road by 4:15am! Mammoth here we come!

The drive there was actually a pretty nice drive. We stopped a couple times to use the rest room and we even stopped in the glamorous town of Lone Pine for some breakfast. It was a nice break because we had a sit down meal.



Our cute camping friends!!


The only thing that was not perfect about this little restaurant was the temperature! It was FREEZING!! I thought we were in the snow covered mountain of Mammoth not in a town that usually has temperatures over 100!!

Now for those of you that know me you know that this would normally NOT fit into my schedule for finding the most perfect camping spot ever... but the breakfast was so good that I forgot about that (and lucky for Tom we still found an AWESOME spot).

I got eggs, bacon, a big ass thing of hash browns (yummy MY FAVORITE), a diet coke and to top it all off a side of biscuits and gravy!! DELICIOUS!!


Here is the aftermath of breakfast!


Tummies full it was back on the road for us. A Mad-Lib or two later (yes we played Mad-libs, and over walkie talkies at that), a quick nap and a final bathroom stop, we were in Mammoth!! It really didn’t take us too much time at all; I think we arrived somewhere around 10:00am.

We decided after arriving it was best to divide and conquer!! I thought it was our best shot at getting a good camping spot. We radioed Tom and Sheila the sites that they should head to and we headed to our favorite campsite, fingers crossed that we would luck out and get a good spot. Well the Camping God’s must have been smiling down on us, because although we didn’t get our spot we had last time we got a NICE spot in our FAVORITE campsite, Minaret Falls. We radioed Tom and Sheila and told them to abandon their search we found the Great Mammoth 2008 spot!!

Of course to document the occasion I had to get a picture of our campsite before we settled in.



Plus stating that I am the official trip photographer is always a good excuse to get out of helping unload and set up. I am one smart camper!! I do come from Oregon you know. Hehehehehehe.

After setting up our home we were all a little hungry so we sat down to relax a little and have a quick bite to eat (Aspen already looks pooped).


Our bellies full again it was time to get to the business of fishing; I mean that is what we were there for.

Danny gave everyone lessons on how to tie their line; as usual I kind of paid attention thinking to myself that I could just have Danny tie my line. Hehehehe. Hey I may be from Oregon but I am still a girl!!


Pole lessons (no not that kind of pole lessons SICKO) down it was time to hit the stream. We didn’t have to go too far as the stream was RIGHT behind our campsite. This was nice for the atmosphere and convenience but as any good fisher girl knows, streams right behind the campsite are never that good for fishing. We still gave it a shot and had a good time trying. It was a good warm up for Tom who hadn’t been fishing since he was eight!!

Here is Danny helping Tom get untangled, I think this was the fist of many times.


And Danny helping Sheila.


Of course I had to get a shot of the couple first fishing experience together, an important occasion to remember!! Hehehehe.


Oh and how could I almost forget that the dogs were in on the action too!!

Aspen is always trying to get rid of the pesky water.


Gracie loves the water and would live in it if we let her! Do they sell dog scuba gear? She is either always lying in the water (sleeping and water, her two favorite things) or gets her self all wet and selects a nice sun spot!!


Yes, I just decided, this is for sure a two posting trip. This one is just too long as it is. So I know you are hanging on the edge of your seat waiting to see how the rest of the trip went but you will just have to wait longer!!! Come back soon!!

Emotions

Yes I am still here. I am a bad blog updater as of late. I have so much to update you on but for now it will just have to be a preview of what is to come. So much has been going on that I just haven’t had time to update any of it! It sucks!!

To start it off we had some crazy stuff go on with a neighbor of mine that is just so disheartening to me. I am the kind of girl that has trust in everyone and thinks that nobody I know would do something bad or do something hurtful to me. I won’t go into the details but the basics of it are that a neighbor we have always been very nice too…did favors for, made Christmas treats for every year (and other holiday treats), gave gifts to children, invited to all our parties and so on, totally betrayed us. And by betrayed us I don’t mean in that high school girl kind of way, “that bitch totally stole my boyfriend”, but in the real sense of the word. It has left me hating that I live next door to this person and worried all the time about what will come of this. Every time I go outside my door I hope that I won’t run into them because I am still so angry and that isn’t the kind of neighbors I want. I love to be the friendly neighbor that does make the holiday treats year after year (even if nobody else does), welcomes new neighbors in and considers relationships with old neighbors as something special, so this truly is an upsetting thing for me. Anyways enough about that for now, on to other things.

So all that stuff with the neighbor drama happened two nights before we were set to leave for camping; fortunately although it put us behind in schedule we were able to get everything done in time and head off for four (much needed) days of camping!!

Yep that is right…that is the big posting I have coming up. We went camping in Mammoth for four days with some friends of ours and it was so AWESOME!! We had the best time and of course I took tons of pictures. That one will be coming in the next couple of days as I will have some time on my hands to update. Here is a sneak peak of the trip and all the fun times to come with that posting.


I guess I am going through all the emotions in this post, I started with anger/betrayal, moved into happiness and now I have something sad to share. On Wednesday night my grandpa passed away. He truly was an amazing man and the only grandfather I ever really knew. While I know that this is what is best for him, that now he no longer has to experience pain or discomfort, and that he is with my Granny Go, I am still selfish and wish that he had more time. I don’t want to talk too much about this yet but I would like to say that life isn’t about waiting. I have been waiting and waiting to plan a trip to my hometown to go visit both my Grandpa and my Gram but I just never found the time or the money. It is now that I am beginning to realize that when people have said to me, if you wait for things in life till you have enough money or time, you will miss out on so much. There is never enough time or money. Well now I get that trip but it is for all the wrong reasons and while I will get to say goodbye to my Grandpa it isn’t going to be the way I should have said good-bye to him. I wish more than anything that I could have just five more minutes with him to hug him and say goodbye; to tell him that I know he will be going to be with my Granny Go, that so many people will miss him and that he truly touched my life. Life isn’t about waiting.

I miss you already Grandpa.