Camping in Caliente

Saturday, May 28, 2016

The Shafers organized a Memorial Day camping trip in the Caliente area.  There were no reservations, so we didn't get the site we wanted.  We ended up camping near Cathedral Gorge.  We set up our tent around the volleyball court. Lex, Taz, and Lawson scaled the gorge walls on their little hike and the younger kids played volleyball.

  

The teens stayed at the camp, playing cribbage, while everyone else headed to Pioche to see "The Million Dollar Courthouse".

  

It was closed, but that didn't stop the kids from sliding through the bars to look around.  There was a nearby reservoir we decided to go check out.  The kids practiced skipping rocks, but it took them a little while to figure what rocks would work.

  

We made cobber, roasted Starbursts and marshmallows, and played games around the campfire that night before heading to bed. 

Sunday, May 29, 2016

The next morning the kids made up a game that was somewhat like dodgeball and played for a bit. 

 

Then we went and walked around the gorge area.

  

The desert was a little depressing, so we went to Kershaw-Ryan State Park.  It is a desert oasis - green in the midst of a barren wasteland.

 

The kids hung out in the wading pool, while the teenagers longboarded (Lawson got pretty tore up) and napped.

  

A long garden snake slithered around in the bushes nearby.

After the park, we made a second go of seeing the courthouse.  There were lots of creepy wax figures inside.

     

The other families took off, leaving just us and the Shafers.  We planned to stay another night, but the wind picked up and broke our pop-up and threatened to damage our tent, so we packed it up and headed home.

The kids were so happy to leave, they were very helpful in cleaning up.