Camping at Enchanted Rock

This past weekend Sydney and I had an opportunity to bond a little, which was really nice. We went camping with a bunch of other fathers and their daughters from our neighborhood as part of Adventure Guides.

There were 10 girls in all with 7 dads. We got there at around lunch time on Saturday (Syd and some of the other girls had a soccer game earlier that morning) had a quick bite to eat and headed up to the top of the rock for a little adventure on the trail. Sydney is often very competitive and this was one of those times. She was very eager to be the first one to the top. After about half way up I saw that she was definitely determined to get there ahead of the group. So with all the other girls very close behind she managed to find her way to the top ahead of us all. I think she was too tired to be excited and went for the water bottle and snack that we brought up before saying much else. And by that time all the other girls and dad's were there to take pictures and explore the caves that were near the peak.

After our spending a couple of hours exploring we were ready to make our way down the path. Syd again decided to be in the front bunch but decided to walk down with her friends instead of alone.



When there wasn't any hiking or eating going on, the girls spent most of their time down in the dry creek bed. Boys in the next camp spent a lot of time in the creek bed too. Needless to say there was a little conflict brewing. The girls practiced sword play with sticks they found just in case they wanted to battle. They also spent a lot of time telling us the boys wouldn't leave them alone even though they did their share of invading the other camp.

The one night we were there it was extremely windy. Shelby decided she wanted to be in our big ol' 50 person tent since there was so much room. When I put the tent up earlier that day there was virtually no wind so I only tied down what was absolutely necessary to keep the rain guard in place. Since the tent was so big it caught a lot of wind. The big walls acted like a sail and the tent was shaking pretty badly when a gust of wind came through. Shelby was having trouble sleeping and asked that I go out and check on the tent. I think it was a combination of the wind and other creepy sounds from outside. I went out and did find that my knot skills were not very good. I retied one of the ropes holding the tent in place and added some that I didn't tie down before. That helped but the tent shook all night.

Sydney slept right through it all. I stayed up with Shelby. She was a little scared but we talked our way through it.



The trip was a total blast and it was such a blessing to be able to spend that time with Sydney. On the way home we drove down highway 29 and saw a bald eagle nesting. It's quite a site. ...something I never thought I would see in person. They are incredible birds.