I finally got to go camping this weekend and as luck would have it I was not able to take my voice with me. I managed to get some kind of illness that’s caused me to lose my voice. For the most part I don’t mind too much. It’s saved me from saying most the things that would only cause more trouble anyway.

Our camp was located in the Soapstone campground along the Mirror Lake Highway. Click This Link to see whereabouts it is. It’s actually a very nice camp ground. We got there in the early afternoon (the others got there the day before) and got set up. From there it was just a matter of doing what I love most, which is nothing. My brother brought his axe up. I enjoy a good axe. We managed to get enough wood chopped up to last the evening and the morning as well. Every action I made cause me to loose my breath and I would have to sit down. This is due to the illness that I had and not how out of shape I was in (and continue to be). We tried to throw the football around but that was also a problem since not only would I get exhausted from it I had cut my thumb fairly badly earlier and every throw would cause a lot of pain.

The campground was next to a large river (large for the area – it was a trickle compared to the rivers back east). The family went down to the river for a bit while I took a nap. After a short while my mother came back to my tent informing me that my family as lost in the woods. I knew the river was all of 100 yards away and my wife is smart enough to not get lost so my first thought was to not worry about it. My second thought was if they truly were lost I would feel terrible if I just sat there relaxing while they were learning wilderness survival. I almost let my first thought win but in the end I had the thought that my second thought could have been inspired by the Holy Ghost and this could be something I should take seriously. I got up and headed over to the river to find my family with Steve and everyone was having a great time.

Since I was now at the river with the family I commandeered my brothers camp chair, sat down and watched as Steve fished the river and the kids played in it. My annoyance of getting up to search for my family was calmed by my knowing that I actually am willing to listen and take action to the promptings given to me, even if I sometimes mistake paranoia for the Holy Ghost.

the rest of the evening went smoothly. My mother made a dutch oven dinner; I can’t remember what it was. We put the kids to bed and fell asleep promptly. Natalie didn’t sleep as she spent the evening worried that the kids would fall off the bed or that they would randomly stop breathing. The morning eventually came and I was up early. Breakfast was my job and I had an incredible dutch oven breakfast planned. I just didn’t know when everyone would be up to eat it. I waited until everyone was up and started making it, which was a bad idea since it took almost 1.5 hours to finish. The breakfast recipe is as follows:

• 1 pound bacon cut into 1 inch pieces
• 10ish potatoes sliced au gratin style (The cause of my cut thumb. Always use the safety thing when using a slicer)
• 1 dozen eggs
• 1 diced green pepper
• 1 diced red pepper (not needed but it would make it prettier)
• 1 diced onion
• A bucket of cheese
• Salsa
• 1 summer sausage cut into half in cubes

Get the dutch oven hot and put in the bacon. Cook that until it’s brown then throw in the potatoes and cook them both until the potatoes are almost ready. Throw in the onion, pepper and sausage. Cook it all until everything is looks so nice. Put the eggs in ans stir them up to get them mixed in with everything. If you’ve timed everything right (which is really just guessing) you’ll end up with perfect potatoes, bacon and eggs all at once. Throw in the cheese and however much salsa you think would make it perfect. Stir it up to mix everything together and serve hot.

I borrowed most of this recipe from a website but then I added my own features to it. Needless to say it was the best breakfast I had all day. The rest of the morning was spent doing nothing. Natalie actually packed up the sleeping bags and the bags and all I had to do was take down the tent and put everything in the car.

One the way home we stopped at a small burger joint named for lunch. It’s a tradition to stop there any time I leave the Mirror lake highway through Kamas. The tradition started when I was in scouts and would go camping up there. We then came home and that’s the end of the story.

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