The view from our camper

First of all, yes, I know that the date is wrong on the photos...either that or I am a time traveler. ;-) I have fixed that problem but the whole trip remains in 2007.

My husband, Steve and son Kade headed out ahead of Justin and I and we arrived around 2 hours later to the camp than Steve and Kade as we had some things to pick up at stores like ice and bread. It was a good trade off though, because as we came into the campground we could see that they had already put up the tent and had most of everything set out. Kade was not feeling well as he and his father had been eating a bag of chips on the trip up and had decided they needed something a bit more healthy so opted for oranges. Between the salty chips lodged in his wisdom toothless holes and the acid from the orange, he was feeling quite bad by the time I got there. Justin helped me finish setting up the camp and we relaxed the rest of the evening.
I cooked some boneless beef ribs that I had soaked in my home-made sauce for 2 days and we made the meat into sandwiches because the marinade makes it fall apart so easily.

We did not even build a campfire that night as we were all not feeling well from both getting ready to go and from the mental and physical exhaustions of life in general. We went to bed early and my husband and I talked quite some time. He said that he had talked to a couple camping nearby and he had said that there had been a large rainstorm on Tuesday night (we got there on Wednesday afternoon) with large hail in it and it had turned the whole mountain white. Most, if not all of the campers in tents had left the next morning and we had a lot of the campground to ourselves. Even if the campground is full it does not seem to be bad because there are enough trees and large granite rocks between the camps that you hardly notice they are there until perhaps they decide to throw a party at 1 a.m.

We took our 3 dogs, Chuck the Chijuajua, Peppy the 1/2 black lab and Rosie the heinz 57. Peppy is Kade's dog and slept with him the first 2 nights. The second night it had rained and he came in early in the morning on the 3rd day when my husband had gotten up (around 6 a.m.) Shivering and moaning and shaking from head-to-toe. I, of course took immediate pity on him and held him in a blanket until he warmed up. The next 3 nights he was my buddy!

The feeling of peace that exhudes from that mountain is absolutely amazing. There are so many people up there with so many different backgrounds and so many thoughts and ideas, but yet it does not disturb the feeling of peace that comes over a person when they step out at nearly 8,000 feet, smell the fresh air and hear the welcome song of the wildlife that lives there. For the state of Oregon, Anthony Lake is truly a gift from God.
I will write another post about the rest of our trip because there are so many things to tell. I still have to tell you about the rainstorm and the sound of the rain on the lily pads and so much more!