Camping in Big Bear

Last year Shana and I decided to branch out and go on a camping trip with the Glendale ward. For the past two years they have been doing a camp clean up/camping trip at a Boyscout camp up in Big Bear. Well a couple of weeks ago we got an e-mail inviting everyone who went last year to come on out again this year. So we decided, what the heck, we'll take a nice break from LA and head up to the beautiful Big Bear mountains. Both of us had to work Friday and we didn't get to leave until about 7:30 which wasn't too bad, but it meant that we didn't get there until 10:30. The only blessing was that traffic on the 10 wasn't bad at all. It had been fairly cloudy all week here and by the time we got to the mountainous windy road the fog was setting in. It was actually kinda creepy to not be able to see anything but the lines on the road in front of you. About half way up the mountain the fog cleared and the beauty of the night sky was unveiled. The stars were absolutely amazing. I miss being able to see the stars in the city. We made it up to camp just in time to partake of the trout roasting in the fire. It had been caught that afternoon and was so good. I think my taste buds are growing up as my affinity for fish has increased over the past few years. Shana and I decided to go to bed right when the silly get to know you games started coming out. We got all bundled up and hoped it wouldn't be too cold in our little canvas boy scout tents.

The next morning I woke up bright and early. Surprisingly I was not cold during the night. Because I was a group leader for the service project we had a meeting before breakfast to get our assignments. My group go to repaint and carpet the cooks quarters. Sounded like a pretty cool job. But then we saw the paint. The color on the can said Melon but it was almost a bright pink. The pictures do not do it justice. And it gets even better, the carpet we were supposed to put in was maroon. Talk about classy. I guess the cooks won't really care. But in the future if anyone gets depressed send them to the cooks quarters for a nice bright wake-up. It was so much fun. We painted two rooms and then it turned out we only had enough carpet to carpet one of the rooms. So we put the carpet in and called it good. I think the fumes may have been getting to us after a while because the giggles were coming out.

You can't really tell that the carpet was maroon, but it looked rather interesting all together.

After lunch we finished putting the rooms back together and headed off to the barn for some horseback riding. I hadn't ridden in several years, but I had a blast. I was quite saddle sore the next day, but it was worth it. It was just so nice to get out in the forest and away from the city for a weekend. Camping plus a service project made for a fun time.