Last Friday night, I spent the better part of an hour loading up the trusty Jeep with camping gear: sleeping bag, tent, camping chairs, head lamp, s'mores supplies...you get the idea. I was really excited at the very thought of going up to my beloved mountains and getting in some R&R. After a couple hours on the road, a pee break and a near collision with a moron in a Toyota Camry, we reached the camping spot we wanted. And were disappointed. The parks service folks had it closed to restore the area after years of camping and tromping through the grassy area had left it pretty barren. So onward we went up the road until we found a pretty good sized spot, even if it was not on the creek like we were hoping. I hadn't used my tent in 3 years but managed to remember how to put it up and 10 minutes later, we had a portable home. I went about blowing up the air mattress, putting the sleeping bag and blankets on it and bringing Miss Fin's dog bed in as well. It was a little cramped. My tent is supposed to be a 4 person tent. I'd like to meet the people who decide how many people sleep in a tent. You better really like the 3 other people in the tent with you because you're going to be getting ultra comfortable with them.

After a lovely lunch of hot dogs over the campfire (they taste so much better cooked over a real fire...all burned and crunchy...yum!), we headed down to the creek to do a little fishing. Dan and our friends started up with a little fishing and I headed upstream to keep Finley away from them. Little Finley's don't understand fishing lines, lures and keeping out of the water to avoid scaring the fish. Finley=water. The water in Cottonwood Creek is pretty freaking cold to say the least. This time of year it's semi tolerable but in May and June (when it's warm outside), the water will literally leave any limb that touches the water numb in about 30 seconds. It's so cold it hurts. But ole Finley was running through it like it was 80 degrees and apparently gashed her paw on a rock we discovered after we were back at the car. At the time, it was a pretty good sized cut but sometime over the next 12 hours, it became a dime sized hole. Trying to keep her penned up in the tent after she was limping was a chore. Finley does not like to be penned up. Period.

We started another fire and started up a simple but yummy dinner of beef stew and cornbread made the night before. And what else is a camping staple? None other than a little s'mores action of course! Just the simple act of trying to get the marshmallow the perfect golden color, or in my case, a flaming ball of fire, was soothing in and of itself. About the time the s'mores action started, my allergies decided to rear their ugly heads in full force. And no amount of Claritin was going to help. It seriously sucked and turned into a major sinus headache. Yay, my favorite kind! I love when it feels like my eyes are going to pop out if I press on my cheeks. Feeling like a total lame-o, I decided to go to bed and crawled into "bed". Lucky Dan got the side of the mattress closest to the door (and a certain furry pup's bed) and ended up sharing the already small mattress with Finley as the temperatures dropped during the night. After waking up multiple times during the night due to the neighboring campers generator (seriously, how high maintenance are you if you bring a generator camping? Can you not live without electricity for the weekend?), I finally woke up to sunlight around 7:30. Stepping outside I realized how cold it was. You could see your breath. Washing my hands off with the water in the jug left them numb. I found out later that it was 28 degrees that morning at my parent's house a few miles away...and they were at a lower elevation than us. Yeah, cold!

We packed up camp and had a seriously scrumptious breakfast and headed back to Denver. It wasn't until about halfway there that I realized how exhausted I was. I am not the world's best sleeper. It doesn't take much in my feather bed and down blanket covered king sized bed to give me a restless night's sleep so you might be able to imagine how well I did in an air mattress that would not fully inflate for the life of me, cold tootsies, and Finley jockeying for position on the mattress and under the covers. Not too well. Is this truly a sign that I'm getting to old to sleep under the stars? Hopefully it's not but maybe I'll stick to day trips to the mountains for a little while.