Enjoying Storms

I don't know what the weather has been doing in your neck of the woods, but it has been raining in ours almost nonstop this past week. The rain has made things green and pretty, and despite the storms, we decided to go camping for a couple of days.

Last fall we came across a campground we had never used before about an hour away from our house. It's located in the mouth of Logan Canyon, up above Bear Lake and it's called Sunrise Campground. If you ever get a chance to camp in this location, do it!!! It's gorgeous!!

Here's what our campsite looked like:


Since we had ventured off to visit with relatives after claiming our campsite on Friday afternoon, we didn't return to our campsite until about 9:00 p.m. It was raining and we were starved, so we opted to cook our hot dogs inside the trailer. They still tasted delicious, possibly because we were hungry. ;)

It rained most of the night and off and on the next morning. We were a little disappointed, since I wanted to capture a picture of the sun rising over Bear Lake, but it was too cloudy. So after a wonderful breakfast, also cooked inside our camper, we ventured forth between storms for a little hike.

Here's Kennon looking out over the valley below and the beautiful Bear Lake:

And this is what he was seeing:

After I took several shots of the area, Kennon caught a photo of me:

While he had the camera, he walked around a precarious outcrop of rocks and captured a beautiful bunch of wild flowers:

I appreciated him taking that shot, since I was sliding around a bit in the mud and with my track record of "grace" or the lack thereof, I wasn't sure I dared climb around to this location. As it was, I managed to lose my cell phone for a brief time. Our youngest son was driving up for lunch that day, and since we were up on top of a mountain, we were receiving pretty good cell phone service. I had tucked my cell phone inside of my camera case, on the chance that he might call. When I posed for that picture Kennon took, I slung my camera case over one shoulder and the cell phone fell out. Fortunately, I caught on that it was missing before we hiked away too far. Following my tracks in the mud helped a great deal with the search. I found the phone not too far from where I had been standing earlier.

We finished our hike and returned to our campsite to fix lunch. We had opted to cook Dutch Oven chicken and potatoes which we also did inside the camper to avoid getting wet. Kennon had brought along his Dutch Ovens, and we utilized the gas stove that came with our camper to cook up a delicious meal. I also sliced up some watermelon, our first of the season, to go with everything else. It was all wonderful and we ate as soon as Devin made his way up to our campsite.

All in all, it was a fun camping adventure, even if it did rain on us 80% of the time. We hiked in between storms, played games when it was raining, and enjoyed bonding with nature.

I had an analogy hit as we camped this past weekend. [No groaning allowed. ;) ]All of us endure storms in our lives. We don't enjoy it much when we're facing a trial, but it is those "life storms" that will inspire growth, strength, and beauty. It's up to us to appreciate what we've gained. And to cling to faith, knowing that a rainbow is just around the corner.