Terrific Tony Grove

Another adventure that we had scheduled while we were in Utah was a camping trip with Cindy Lynn & Mahon and our friend Sean and his kids Abigail, Benjamin, and Laura Kate.

We decided that we would go to Tony Grove in Logan Canyon, a place where we'd camped before Jason was born. It turned out to be a great choice. The weather was perfect and we had a wonderful time.

Abigail and the girls had a great time pretending to be princesses. (A time-honored tradition--this was Cindy Lynn and Gwen's favorite camping game!)

Benjamin and Jared ran around chasing the princesses and trying to be manly men.

Rachel, as usual, was covered in dirt from almost the moment we arrived. She's like a magnet for dirt!

We ate wonderful camping food: tin foil dinners with squash and beans out of Sean's garden, Russ's dutch oven cobbler for dessert, and mountain man breakfast in the dutch ovens.

When Josh wanted his tin foil dinner to be different from all of the others, I got creative.

Here the kids are making weapons, pretending that they were going to go hunting.

Laura Kate was playing hard to get but is always a cutie.

Everyone was fascinated to see the little chipmunks around the camp. We see a lot of squirrels in NC, but not usually chipmunks.

We made sub sandwiches for lunch and then set out on a hike around the lake.

I've never seen dragonflies like this before--they were bright blue.

There were all sorts of beautiful wildflowers. The girls didn't know it wasn't ok to pick them, and were happily making bouquets when we realized what they were doing. Fortunately we were able to stop them before a ranger came by to arrest them!

From the starting point the far side of the lake looked lovely and green. Once we were on the far side of the lake it was amazing to see the details. The stony walls, towering evergreens, and the delicate wildflowers...all were beautiful.


Abigail found a big rock to climb up on, and Rachel soon joined her.

I love this picture of Jenna in the field of wildflowers.


Every now and then Laura Kate had to stop and check Sean's hair...not entirely sure what she was looking for. Not sure I want to know!

I thought this sign was fascinating. I usually assume that it's only recent generations that overuse or abuse land, but this sign tells that in the early 1900's Tony Grove had been overused and was dirty and barren in spots. So hey--I guess we're doing something right--because it was absolutely spectacular.

When we got back to the starting point the kids had found a fun log to play on. They had to wade in the water a little to get there, darn it, and then had the fun of climbing onto the log and walking all of the way down it.

Other highlights of the trip that I don't have pictures of are the huge moose that Laura Kate and I saw while out on our evening walk, and the freakish out-of-nowhere thunderstorm in the middle of the night. The first flash of lightning seemed more like a strobe light than lightning, but it was followed by a for-real crack of thunder about 30 seconds later. The thunder rumbled and echoed off of all of the surrounding mountains and it was very exciting. Fortunately the rain held off for long enough for everyone to run to the outhouse and then jump into sleeping bags.

We give the Tony Grove camping experience two thumbs up, and are thinking that next time we need to stay for two nights!

Here is a short video of some of our camp-out entertainment: