little hammy goes to hobble creek

 A few years back, Mr. G bought this little old '59 camper trailer. It looked/looks exactly like canned ham so he named it appropriately. When he got it, it was all he could think about. He put in countless hours obsessing...I mean....working on the paint design for the exterior and nailing down the interior decor as well. It all paid off, because it's A-S-O-M (Mr. G lingo for, AWESOME). After he got it all put together we took it on a lil' road trip to Galveston, Texas. (So. Much. Driving!) We fell in love with it!

Since then, Little Hammy has been on many more trips and this week it traveled a whopping 20 minutes from its home to Cherry Campground up Hobble Creek Canyon. Our friend, Mark Bailey joined us with his son Finn. I kinda felt like I was intruding a dude trip, but whatevs. 

On the way up, I admit, I was a tad (a lot) on the grumpy side. Sometimes I let the annoyances of the day creep into the fun time of the day. But, after some Apples to Apples, tin foil dinner, and some light convos about religion and politics, the dudes had me in a much better mood. 

That night, I slept like absolute rubbish. I don't know what it was. Perhaps it was the atmospheric change from all the male gas that was emanating inside the ham, or maybe is was Chancho waking up and giving a low rumbling growl at the night noises. Whatever it was, I was up. I kept hearing things too and would peek out the back window expecting to see some hooligans stealing our stuff. Instead, I saw nothing. 

Fast forward to a few sleepless hours later.

Mr. G got up to take Chancho out to do his morning jobs (pee). What he discovered during Chancho's rounds was the happenings of the "hooligans" I heard. My hooligans were nasty raccoons!!! We didn't leave anything out in the open except for a bag of dog food and our closed cooler. Those little rascals tore holes in Buddy's food bag and ate it ALL! They also opened our cooler, moved the carrots outta the way, got out the carton of eggs, and went to town on what was meant to be our scrambled eggs for breakfast.

 (note the sleepless dark circles)

Without our dozen eggs, we still had a delicious breakfast of pancakes and bacon. After we digested our food (minus the eggs) we headed out for a hike. We tried one "trail", but after Chancho got stung by a bee, and the "trail" vanished we turned back to find a real trail. Wadsworth trail was perfect. Nice and shady with a little river running along one side of it.

The dudes went swimming in said little river. None of them brought their swimmin' trucks. Being dudes they went in their undies. Some undies leave more to the imagination than others.

 Mark captured some of the beauty. 

 The rest of the day, we hung out, ate, ate some more, the rest of the Bailey clan came up for dinner, ate again, and lazed about. I was planning on going home that night, because I had to work the next morning and wanted to get a good night o' sleep. Everyone else thought that sounded like a great idea, so we all left. Copiers! Nothing against Camp Cherry. We had accomplished all that we had set out to do. 

A realization came to me during this short camping trip--there is so much beauty surrounding me. Most days I neglect it, because I'm too absorbed in myself. God has given me so much to be grateful for, but today I'm grateful for to live in a place where seclusion, peace, and yes, beauty, are just a few minutes away. Time to get outside and outside of myself.