Camping with the Christensen's 2008

I have a hard time thinking that Ryan should go to work for 2 days in one week, when he is already taking 3 days off, especially if those 2 days are Thursday and Friday. When his sister planned a Monday-Wednesday family reunion, I took it upon myself to organize a camping trip with my family for Thursday-Saturday. Shanda and her family and Cortney and his family and my parents and Carson came up to Lava Hot Springs to play with each other. It was so much fun! I can see us getting together yearly for a camping trip (maybe we'll skip the years when we have our big vacations planned, though).

We started our festivities in Soda Springs. Roderic and Hyrum were SOOO excited to see "The Dinkey Engine" at the park while we waited for the others to arrive. We ate lunch at Caribou Mountain Pizza and Grill - yum. Then we saw the Geyser go off. We went out to Hooper Spring to try some straight from the ground soda water. Everyone had a taste, even Sabrina, who despises carbonated everything. Yuck. It tasted like iron and blood. (Ryan brought home a bottle of it.) Then we went to Eastman Drug to try the same soda water with sugar and flavoring at the original soda fountain. Strawberry Cream Soda tasted delicious.

We stopped at Historic Chesterfield Township. It's a Mormon ghost-town. Neat. Shanda and Dad thought it was a great place to stop and learn some history.


Camping at River's Edge campground in Lava Hot Springs left a lot to be desired. Their website said they had showers and toilets. In reality there were 4 commodes and 2 showers for women - I assume the same for men, but I didn't see those first hand - to share among the 87 camping sites. Talk about lines. We had 2 sites to share among our 4 families. Right up against a rock cliff, with a small stream and lots of rocks. At least we had shade. The thing that gets me is that they charged $20 per tent per night. If we would have all crammed into one tent that is all we had to pay, but since we had 4 tents we got to pay $80 per night. For a crummy rocky site, with no grass to play on. Just down the way there were camper trailers and 5th wheels who got to pay only $35 per night - and their sites had grass. Annoying.

One good thing about our campground was that it was right on the River's Edge and they rented tubes to float down the river. All day Friday we drove to the east end of town, got on the river and floated until we got to our campsite. The kids had a blast! The parents had a blast! I didn't take any pictures on the river. Shanda, will you post some please?

Another good thing was that we got to hear and see trains every hour during the day (and I'm told they came by every 2 hours in the night, but I didn't hear those; a perk from having slept alongside Highway 89 for 2 nights, I guess). Have I ever mentioned that I have 2 boys who are completely in love with all things train? EVERY time Hyrum would hear the train whistle, he would stop whatever he was doing, get really excited and start stomping his feet and pointing and shouting "Da do do do do do! Da do do do do!" Even Shanda's 2 year old started showing excitement by the end of our stay.


All in all, it was good food, good company, good times.