Government Shutdown Be Damned, We're Having Fun Anyway

Instead of moping about the continued government shutdown, we took advantage of the forced three day weekend.  It was a gift.  We took early delivery of our teardrop trailer.  Its ours, we're paying on it, but its not technically done yet.  SoCal is behind on delivery of a few items.  So we were without running water, but hell, who cares.  I wanted to go camping.

It was just going to be overnight, so bedding, food and clothes were packed and after breakfast on Saturday we cruised on up to Reynold's Creek again.  We enjoyed our weekend there in April (<- see links) and we couldn't think of a nicer spot to try out the teardrop.

Once through Miami, we began our ascent into the mountains.  The temperature dropped and the trees appeared. By the time we stopped to set up the temperature was in the mid 60's.

This was our view from camp.  On our left, a rock face.  On our right, a very low creek.  Apparently fall is not the time for running water.  There were pools dotted throughout, but the flow was minimal.

We took a walk up the road, and Rommel found a pool to dive into.

After our walk, we headed back to camp to have an early dinner.

I was dressing my bratwurst, when I glanced up at the Jeep.  I couldn't have planned a cooler shot.

As I was eating, I turned around to see Elly sleeping peacefully on her bed, while Rommel sat menacingly behind her.

The sun began to set and the colors on the rock face changed by the minute.  The reds and oranges deepened, until the sun finally set below the mountains and left them gray against the twilight.

My boy painted with light while I was playing with long exposures.

I set the camera down and cosied up to the fire with Mike and the dogs.  We lounged by the fire for a few hours, soaking up its warmth.  The dogs were put to bed long before we turned it.  Sleeping with two large dogs inside the teardrop will only be on emergency basis only from now on.  Serious bed hogs left me with little sleep.

Mike woke before I did and snapped our morning view.  Clouds raced overhead northward until the left a clear blue sky.

Elly and I laid around for a while, enjoying the cool fall air. She's not a morning dog.

We all took to the creek for some early morning wandering.

Fall has just barely begun to show its face in southern Arizona.  Yellows have just started to dot the trees, an occasional orange or red leaf was visible, but greens still persisted throughout the forest.  It was beautiful.

There were still a handful of butterflies fluttering around. They haven't received the memo that summer has ended.

We left the creek and wandered back to camp for brunch.  Dog Was Here:

Dog is somewhere in this picture.  Go ahead and find him.  He was doing his best sniper impersonation while we ate.

Meanwhile, Elly found a spot of sunshine and mimicked a baby deer.

Sadly, our time here was short.  Camp pack up was quick, and we were on the road by 11.  It was 61 degrees, sunny, breezy and wonderful.

We climbed and descended back into scrub brush and cacti.  Temperature climbed and traffic increased.

We were home within 2 hours, it was 83 degrees.  The trailer was unpacked and we were back to the daily grind.  Thankfully our weekend isn't over yet.  We had dinner with the folks.  And tomorrow we're off to ride with the guys up to Jerome.  We were given a long weekend and we're taking full advantage of it!

(The trailer will go back to John this week to be completed.  On our next trip, I'll do a better review of it.  Hard to review something that's incomplete.  But as a teaser weekend, I LOVED it!)