Father's and Son's with Ben

Thanks to Ben, Gabe, and Sam for letting me crash with them on their Father's and Son's campout this year with their ward. I had fun and of course the area where we camped was like going home since they held it at Whiting Campground in Maple Canyon. The weather was perfect and I was able to sleep out under the stars (and tree limbs) behind their tent. Well, sleep came after the older boys finally stopped yelling and screaming and busting through the trees finding I was in their path. But the breakfast was really good and the company was great as well.

Ben cooked my supper meal since I wasn't able to get away from camp until 7 pm and it was really good. The salmon was very good.

We went on a little hike up the canyon before we left that morning and it was fun as well. It was short but short is good sometimes.

We spent most of the hike at the crossing watching spiders, butterflies and water skeeters.

Ben was really bow legged as he carried Gabe for a little while on the way back, it was really quite entertaining to watch him walk (made me wonder if I am that bow legged as well, especially when carrying a backpack.)

Our trip to the Colorado National Park near Grand Junction CO.

We had a great time exploring the Colorado National Monument near Grand Junction, Colorado. Here are some of the images taken. 

Lori is a great photographer and understands the need for getting different angles for the shot.

I was going to go up here also but when I tried with my camera to do it well I just didn't chance it. It was not as easy as it looked. Not much to hang on too with only one free hand.

 Getting back down was not easy either even though this monkey made it look that way.

Lori mentioned how it made them nervous when the girls got to close to the edge. Well I felt the same way and with good reason, I just must not be a daring anymore because this would have been a real attraction for me at that age as well. However when you look at the cliff in the background it is easy to see why we were nervous, the drop off at this point was the same.

There was a tour guide giving some tourists the information on the monument when one of the people asked if it was legal to climb these rocks. He stated that it wasn't and that it was posted but they don't try to stop them either since there  was just too much of it done. They choose to just ignore it.

 This rock looks quite small and narrow

  but I was surprised in the next image when we got to see it from another vantage point how wide it really was from end to end.

Notice the storm in the background.

Nothing to worry about!

 Or was there? It was along way down and lots of slick rocks which this shot still doesn't show.

 Behind Kasia you can see what the area really looked like where she was in the image where I stated that there was nothing to worry about. You can see what the edges of these lookout points were really like when you see them from another angle.

There was a storm that moved across the valley while we were up here. The lightning was beautiful and it actually put a stop to the soccer games that were still being played to the extent that Kasia's next game was delayed by about 30 minutes and their game cut short by 10 minutes as the officials were still trying to get all of the games in for that day.