Camping

My friend, Michelle, is a professor at a college in Texas.  Her Dad lives up her in Orem and she comes up every summer to spend some time with him and enjoy the Utah mountains.  She's an only child and is always looking for people to go on adventures with.  I can't always, but I'm up for the odd adventure when I can.  (Usually we take the kids hiking together once or twice a year).  She's a lot of fun and doesn't stress about little things.  She invited our high school friend, Rebecca, to go camping with us over the weekend.  It was fun.  It was nice to get a break from being mom and just be me.  Jer is amazing and took it all happily.  (Rebecca had never been away before.  She's a mom of 7 and 3 of her kids are on the Autism spectrum. I've known her since grade school and I always liked her.  We always joked that we were birthday buddies.  We share the same birthday just a year apart.  She was held back a year because she was so tiny as a child.  We went through Elementary, Jr High, High School and even College together.  She started sitting with our lunch group during High School and we made it a regular thing at BYU.  I even drove her and her bike home from college several times because I had a truck).  I had made a reservation with my ministering companion for the campsite that she hosts up the American Fork canyon.  Apparently she forgot and didn't get my reminder text because she doesn't get service up the canyon.  We had some water and everything else we needed, so we went up the canyon to the Timpanookie (not sure of spelling) trail and hiked in to a primitive camping spot.  We chatted, slept on the ground, peed in the woods, chatted some more in the morning and then went out to lunch together on the way home.

We camped close to where a herd of Elk live.  We heard them late at night pass by us as they went down the mountain and then again at about 5 am as they came back up the mountain.