First Campout of 2024...and in our camp trailer!

 We did it!  We went camping in our little camp trailer!  We bought it last year and just never got out in it with all of the stuff happening in Anna Lou's life, Bean's life and just life in general.  And we had to do some stuff to the the truck and the trailer...but finally, everything was ready and we went!  Yippee!!!  We went to the Big Sequoia and only shared the area with a group of students/instructor from SUU.  We got there first and found a great spot that would work for the trailer.  It is early, so lots of things weren't out yet, but it was still beautiful.  We had a few struggles setting up and taking down, but it was a great first effort and we are getting the hang of how to camp in a trailer.  Sitting there drinking our hot chocolate inside while it was so cold outside that night was pretty nice.  And getting up and turning on the heater in the morning was pretty nice too!  But, I don't want to give up tent camping either.  There are some places I still want to go that the trailer can get to.  The bed was very comfortable though!  So it's the start of a new era of camping I guess!  We took a great hike almost to the base of the mountain that evening and even ran into a little bit of snow.  Paul made us a fantastic pork chop dinner.  In the morning we checked out the sequoia and on the way down we stopped to look at the river at another camp spot and then went for a hike to the hidden waterfall which was really beautiful.  Had a little mishap after we got home when I left the trailer keys on the bed cover of the truck while unhitching the truck.  I left them and a rock I had brought home and then we drove down to pick up the car from the shop.  Paul brought the truck home to start unloading while I got the car.  When I got home he showed me how the rock had amazingly stayed on the truck all the way home from the car shop.  (He didn't know I had put the keys there too!)  Then I knew!  And we very quickly drove the route we had taken.  Only a little way along there were the trailer keys in the middle of Bluff Street at an intersection.  Our light was green so we drove out into the intersection and thankfully the other light stayed red long enough for me to jump out and grab the keys and get back in and drive through before the light changed!  Felt very blessed to find the keys, with no damage to them at all.  We had another little mishap coming out of the car wash after spraying off the trailer.  We were coming out and someone cut us off so we had to turn more sharply than we were going to and scraped the air conditioner on the side of the trailer on a post, but thankfully stopped soon enough to back it up and the guy got out of the way and we got out with no damage.  I had taken the blocks out from behind the wheels too soon at the camp site when we were hooking it up to the truck and it rolled back closer to the edge of a drop off than felt comfortable.  We are learning!!!  But, after all was said and done, it was a wonderful first campout of the year and first time in the trailer!!!