Camping (part 1)

It's Sunday night now. We just got home from our camping trip to the Calaveras Big Trees.
It was a very enjoyable family trip!
We camped for a total of 3 days and 2 nights. Arrived Friday afternoon in Calaveras and set up our camp with our new tents. We were very lucky to get a spot because the campgrounds were full. I had managed to go online(this week) and pay for Friday night but Saturday was sold out. We asked about staying and the Ranger (that checked us in) said to check back the next morning to see if anyone had cancelled. ...No one had but we did get to stay because they keep open spot # 116 as a walk-up-non-reserved spot. It meant that on Saturday morning we had to pack up our first camp and moved to 116 spot.
Friday we stayed in spot 101. It was a good spot. Everyone around us was so quiet. We made taco/burritos for dinner. I used our new camp set and stove
the WisperLite (from Rei) to cook with for the first (meal) time.
It worked awesomely..Cleaning up the dishes I realized I need another bucket or collapsible "sink" bucket. I saw one at REI...but our cook set's outer shell is an actual water tight canvas bucket that will hold water for washing, so I didn't get it. Now that I've tested everything out I want a second container. The stove was perfect and I used it alot.
Our tents were easy to set up. We set up both tents. Liam slept in the small tent and William, Riley and I slept in the blue tent (just feet away). This isn't the best picture...but you can see both tents in the back ground. And I'm using the new stove and cook set to make our dinner.
Riley made friends almost instantly. The campsite next to us had 2 little girls her age. They played and had fun until dinner time.
Liam made Fire! Here he is lighting the campfire.
We roasted mini marshmellows and made mini smores.
Then got the kids ready for bed and then William went to bed (all before 10pm) so I sat by the fire and listened to my ipod (zen and the art of triathlon)for a while before cleaning up the table and getting myself to bed. I had a good view of the stars where I was sitting....it was amazing. We don't see many of the stars from the valley. I saw about 5 satellites in about an hours time.


I can not wait until our big backpacking trip in Yosemite in a few weeks....It's going to be so awesome