Better Pace Yourself

Okay, we finally got to wake up and look forward to spending the entire day outside. Yay us!!

Zeke and I got up earlier than everyone like usual and went for a walk to check out what campsites were going to be available that day. We were still boondocking, although at the campsite, we did not have a place to call permanent home for the remainder of the trip.

Once walking around the campsite, I notice that people were calling dibs on sites by putting their information (receipts that say you have paid and how long you will be there with your info on them) behind the present campers to get in line of sorts. Holy Crap! (It wasn't crap, I have a sailors vocabulary in actuality)

So game on, I find a spot I love that does not have two tags on it so I go on over to the site where you pay and get your receipt to claim your spot. At the time another guy had pulled down into the campsite and is looking for the same thing. Yep, competition. But, I have a day on him so I am a bit ahead of the game.

So grab a ticket and no pen. Zeke and I rush back to VanDora fast, but not suspiciously fast to give up our agenda. I am sure he had no clue to what I was doing, but that is how it was in my head. Grab a pen, get my info on it and claim my spot. Boom! Mission accomplished! Now that fiasco was over, coffee by the river. Yes please.

Once the sleeping beauties work up we had a nice little breakfast and geared up for our first family hike. Just across the river was the Oh-Be-Joyful trail head so that was where our adventure for the day was going to start.

Before we left though, I went by the site to see if it was cool to put our camp chairs there for when they leave. This world always reminds us of how small it could be. Totally cool/great couple with their two kids and an adventure dog of their own. And.. Out camping from St. Louis. Go Missouri, midwest folks rock.

And were off. You could make the trail a loop of sorts but I think that would have been 12 miles plus. We just headed out and thought we would turn back when we got tired. Problem is every corner, every peak, every ridge, brought us something awesome. So you just keep going.

Glorious day for a hike

On our way up the trail.

Just awesome!

Mountain woman!

This Kid!

I could spend the rest of my life in the mountains and not get tired of this.

Adventure dog doing adventure dog things

With landscape like this we almost over extended our hike. Once 3 miles in we decided it was time to turn back. Pretty good distance for the family on our first hike of the trip. We nearly overcommitted on this hike. Note to self: next outing, don't go all out on the first day of activities, you have time, pace yourself.

Once back it was time to move on on over to our campsite. We would stay there the reminder of the trip.

After we set up camp, the crew went to play in the river. I however, finally got a ride in.

In a town known for mountain biking, it is pretty fun on this drop bar gravel bike. This day I just hit up lower loop from our campground.

Since we had a home base now, we decided to clean up and head to town for dinner. A suggestion from yet another awesome couple we met at the campground took us to a eclectic pizza place called The Secret Stash. It was awesome!