I'm excited when Christmas break lasts a full 3 weeks, I look forward to Rodeo and Spring breaks and even Summer break! I can't wait to have my all my babies home with me. While I am excited to see all the new things they learn and how they grow during the school year, I am still a little sad to see them leave the house when school starts in the fall.
Since we are taking a two week trip to the east coast this summer, Craig couldn't take the entire week off work. So we planned two smaller trips instead.
On Saturday we surprised the kids with a trip to Rose Canyon Lake for some fishing and playtime in the pines. We didn't realize that the lake doesn't open until April, so we had to hike the path. It was way too long to make it all the way to the lake. So, we stopped at a campsite and built a fire to cook lunch. Afterwards, we hiked back up the road to the group area and spent the rest of the day playing around there. We have this space reserved for our Girl Scout Party in May, so it was a good opportunity to get the lay of the land. We got back to the truck just as the sun set. We didn't make it all the way down the mountain before the fun of the day had all four kids sound asleep.
On Wednesday we decided to head for the northern part of the state and try our hand at boondocking near Stoneman Lake. Something we plan to do often. We knew we were in for some snow on Thursday and cool evenings. We decided to bring the suburban and trailer with the quad as well.
We pulled in just before dark and grabbed a campsite off the side of the road. It was pretty and had plenty of space. It was a little too much of an incline to get Daisy completely level, but we managed to get it as close as possible.
The next morning we woke up to a winter wonderland. The kids were thrilled! They couldn't wait to put warm clothes on and go play in the snow. That lasted all of 10 minutes before they wanted to go back inside.
Later that morning the snow melted and our campsite turned into a mud pit. The little bit of an incline revealed to be a pathway for all the snow melt to get to a little creek. We decided we needed to pack everyone into the suburban and drive into Flagstaff. While we were there we got everyone a pair of rainboots, grabbed some lunch and checked out a piece of property we've had our eyes on.
We came back to what appeared to be drying ground. We thought we should probably pull Daisy up a little closer to the road so she doesn't get stuck. Wrong idea. She was already stuck... in the mud. We had no choice but to wait for the land to dry out. Good thing we were planning to stay a couple more days. It snowed again that evening.
On Friday, we explored the area and found not 1, but 2 little creeks behind our campsite. They were flowing nicely with all the snow melt. The kids loved being able to play and stomp around in their rain boots. After they went in the RV that evening, I took their boots down to wash them off one last time. It was such a beautiful area. I could've stayed there for hours.
On Saturday the ground under Daisy still wasn't dry enough and the forecast changed to possible rain! We had to get her out of there before the ground became saturated again! Luckily our neighboring campers heard us and came to see if we needed any help. Turns out they got stuck in the mud on their way up and so did another family member. They had some tow straps and helped pull Daisy up to the dry area and Craig drove her to pavement. Then he came back and helped load everything up into the suburban and trailer to head home.
It was dark by the time we had everything packed and ready. After a bit of a stressful time trying to get Daisy unstuck and 4 hour drive looming ahead of us, we decided to drive up to the casino in Camp Verde and stay the night before heading home on Sunday morning.
This is one adventure we will never forget! We discovered some issues with the generator and Daisy even sustained a little damage to her storage bins. All in all though, this was exactly what we needed. We now have a punch list of items to get checked and things we need for Daisy before our trip east. We also learned what we need to watch for on future boondocking trips.
