Campout!!

October 27 was our 1st wedding anniversary. I told Julie that I would surprise her and would take care of the planning. I was thinking of some nice places that we could go, when the thought occurred to me that maybe we should go camping.

Now, that's not as crazy as it sounds. Julie and I had talked about going camping before, but had never made definite plans. Still, I realized that I would be taking a HUGE risk by surprising her with a camping trip on our 1st wedding anniversary. So, I decided to run it by her first. To my surprise, she said that she was hoping that we would go camping! That was a big relief. I guess I'm not quite as out of touch as I think I am.

So, on Friday, October 24, I left work early, we packed up the car, and headed north towards Payson. We camped at the Ponderosa campground just east of Payson. It was a great spot. We set up the tent, and then got a campfire going. We unloaded the car and set up a campstove alongside the barbecue grill that was there. We barbecued steaks and cooked up some au gratin potatoes and frozen corn. It was delicious. We were so full that we didn't even get around to making s'mores!

Julie was really looking forward to some cooler weather -- and she got it. The overnight temperatures were around 40 degrees Fahrenheit -- maybe a couple of degrees cooler. She had forgotten what it was like to feel cold!

For breakfast, we cooked up bacon, scrambled eggs, and hash browns. Another delicious meal. We spent the rest of the morning sitting around, playing a bunch of card games and board games that we had brought up with us. It was very relaxing and enjoyable.

I had turned off my phone at about 9:30 p.m. on Friday night, and didn't turn it on again until about 11:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. There were two voicemails waiting for me -- both of them from our next door neighbor. I listened in shock as my neighbors explained that they were just calling to check on us because we had left our garage door open!! Oh, no!

When I got home from work on Friday, I had backed the car up to the garage, to make it easier to load everything in it. After everything was loaded, Julie and I got in the car and drove off -- without even thinking to look behind us at the wide-open garage door that we were leaving!

I immediately called Ashley, who went over to check on the house (and to close the garage door). Fortunately, we live in a quiet and safe neighborhood. Nothing was missing or out of place. Whew!

Julie had told me about camping as a kid growing up, and about the fun she had riding a motorcyle on the trails. When we went camping with her family at the Anderson family reunion in 2007, we had driven ATV's around the trails. So, I tried to find a place that would rent ATV's up in Payson. I didn't find any, but did find a bed and breakfast place that would rent us a Rhino -- which looks kind of like an off-road golf cart. So, we decided to do it.

We loaded up the car and drove back to Payson, and then north, heading towards Strawberry. We turned off at the bed and breakfast to pick up the Rhino. After receiving some directions, and making a couple of wrong turns, we were off on the trail! We saw some really beautiful scenery. Unfortunately, we also saw a lot of areas where campers seemed to have just left piles of garbage around. How sad.

Here's some of the scenery. The autumn colors are from the trees that were right next to a little creek that was running.

Here's a picture of me and the Rhino:

Julie got to drive it, too:

Of course, this is Arizona, so we found plenty of cactus among the trees:

After spending a couple of hours riding the trails, we'd had enough. So, we drove back to the bed and breakfast place, turned in the Rhino, and headed back home.

It really was a wonderful way to celebrate our 1st anniversary.