Red Canyon at Night, Blanchards' Delight

Gregg's parents invited us to spend a couple of days camping at Red Canyon near Flaming Gorge on 7-9 August.  We couldn't possibly turn them down since it's one of (if not the one) Gregg's favorite places in the world.  Plus, with our sweet new camping set-up (tent and pack-n-play) we're ready to get in as much camping as we can this summer.  So we went.  We arrived at the Greens Lake Campground around 3 pm on Thursday afternoon after a five hour drive through Colorado and part of Utah.  We were so glad to be there!  And it turns out we got there just after a really nasty hail storm had blown through.  Glad we missed that part!

Our first items of business included setting up camp while Cal played with her cousins, walking down to the dock at Greens Lake to watch the ducks and finding cute colorfully painted rocks along the way, snuggling around the campfire while eating Dutch oven peach cobbler, and listening to scary stories told by Melia, Kage and Gregg (better check your head for that letter B!).

On Friday morning we woke early and were lucky to watch a beautiful sunrise.  Then it was time for Cal to take a nap, but she didn't sleep so well at naptime (well, really anytime) in her pack-n-play in the noisy campground, so Gregg swaddled her up, draped the burp cloth over her eyes, and we walked around the lake on the quiet trail while she slept in his arms.  After lunch it started raining.  It was never a very hard rain, but it was constantly drizzly for most of the afternoon.  That didn't stop us from being outside, though.  We hiked down to the Red Canyon overlook and visitor's center with a rigged up umbrella contraption over the backpack carrier, MacGyver-style.  It worked great.  And we had a marvelous walk along the rim.

Crawdads were plentiful in the lake, and we even saw some
in the grass near the kid's fish pond by the lodge.

After dinner, the clouds cleared and we had a most marvelous evening at the lake playing around in Tippy, Paul and Kim's canoe, and watching the clouds.  Then another storm rolled in and we headed back to camp for s'mores that we didn't get to eat because the lightning drove us into the trailer.  We played a game together and then called it a night once the thunder was far enough away to make us feel less chicken about venturing over to our tent.

{COMING SOON: GIF OF CANOE ENTRANCE HERE}

{COMING SOON: GIF OF PULLING FACE ANTICS HERE} 

Luckily Saturday dawned clear and beautiful.  We spent a lazy morning sitting (and sleeping) around the fire, eating breakfast, visiting the lodge gift shop, and breaking camp.  It was a fun weekend with family in one of the prettiest places I know.  Let's do it again next year!

*Special thanks to Kim for many of these photos that I stole from her blog*