I just can't overcome my automysophobia

Clouds drifting through the valley

Happy Birthday America!  We shall celebrate by going camping!    It was my idea, I'll admit it.  Dave can think of things he would rather do with his vacation time but was a good sport about it.  I have so many happy memories of camping with my family growing up that I want my kids to have those memories too.  However, things started a little rough.  We were camping about 7000 feet up on Mt. Lemmon here in Tucson.  As we hit about 4000 feet, it started sprinkling.  We got to about 6000 feet and we got hit with an honest-to-goodness monsoon.  It was raining so hard that we had to pull over because torrential downpour + being inside  the cloud = no visual on the road.  When the clouds lifted a little we continued on our way up the mountain, but it was still raining like crazy.  We checked into our campsite, but stayed in the car because it was raining so hard.  The children were not happy about this.  We drove a few more miles to the top of the mountain where there is a little village called Summerhaven.  We popped into the general store and bought the kids some candy, which kept them entertained for approximately 2 minutes.  WHEN can we go camping?  WHEN will the rain stop?  He's looking out MY window!  Etc.  The rain slowed down to a drizzle and Dave found a little road he wanted to explore.  It was so beautiful!

The road took us to the front of the mountain, giving us amazing views of the mountain range and the valley of Tucson.  We even saw some deer and the largest wild turkey I've ever seen.

Big turkey

This guy stood easily 3-4 feet tall.  We finally drove back to our camp and got our tent set up.  The rain had stopped which I was very grateful for.  I'm sad I didn't get any pictures of the campsite with our tent and such, but everyone was hungry and tired so that took precedence.

After we got the kids in bed Dave and I made some hot chocolate and sat outside chatting for a while.  We could hear bats all around us catching their dinner.  Suddenly I hear this whirring sound and something large starts thrashing in my hair before crashing to the ground in front of me.  I screamed and flung my cocoa to the ground and started doing a crazed version of that dance Napoleon Dynamite does in his movie.  After a score of 9.7 from the judges I grabbed a flashlight and took a look at what buzzed me.  It wasn't a bat at all- it was a giant flying beetle at least 2-3 inches long with long horns.  So gross.  Dave killed it and we stayed outside a while longer, but every once in a while I could hear the ominous whirring of one of his friends.  Later, after we had gotten in our sleeping bags, I was almost asleep when I heard a slapping noise. Dave switched on his flashlight and held up a slightly squashed but still enormous spider.  "It was crawling over my hand" he announced.  I was a little twitchy the rest of the night.

 After the standard cold discomfort of a night in a tent we woke up (at 5 am) to a beautiful morning.  After breakfast we packed up camp and took a hike around Rose Lake with the kids, than drove down the road a ways to a pullout where we had a picnic lunch.

Rose Lake

All in all, (now that I've had a night in my comfortable, bug free bed) it was a fun experience.  The mountain and scenery were beautiful and well worth  seeing.  Camping with little ones is just challenging though and a LOT of work.  Dave and I decided that maybe for the next year or so we'll do day trips and have the fun of spending time in nature without some of the difficulty.