May 14th and 15th was the Father and Sons campout. For the first time in years I felt well enough to go. James and Daniel were so excited, it was all they could talk about for weeks. James even bought some camping gear for his birthday. On the 14th the boys were up early ready to go. However everyone was gone to Farmington to Wildly Natural. So I had to stay and watch the phone and the office. That only lasted until lunch. I was pretty excited to go also, so we ate lunch and then got into the car. We drove into town and had to run some errands. We stopped at Wal-Mart and bought dinner to make on the campfire, pop biscuits, hot dogs and bacon. Then we were off to the Sandias. In Albuquerque the sun was shining and it was beautiful, around the mountain it was cloudy and cold quite a shock when we got out of the car. The Stake had use of a scout ranch just north of Cedar Crest. When we arrived there were a few fathers with their sons there we looked over the camp and set up next to a spot that had had a campfire before.
There was a tent next to us and it was Brother Martinez. I did not know that it was him until he returned from a walk with Nathaniel and Abe Park. Later that evening most everyone from our ward that came ended up there next to us. I was surprised at the campsite I had some signal, I could not call out but I could send texts. So Lynn and I were texting back and forth all afternoon. Brother Tigret said that if your cell phone works you are not really camping.
By about 4:00 we began discussing our camp fire when we learned that the owners of the campground did not want any fires. Luckily Lynn suggested bringing a small grill to cook on. So we made our dinner on the grill. Which worked out well. By 7:00 James began to complain about the cold but he wanted to hold out for the fireside (charcol-side). It so happened that it began to drizzle, which made it colder. At 8:00 we went over for the charcolside. Brother Tigret talked about our relationships with our fathers. He used several examples from the scriptures. Then brother Clark spoke about father and sons cam-pouts and how they increased his relationship with his father. By this time the rain was a heavy mist and it was quite cold. After the fireside we went back to our tent and James began crying he wanted to go home. Turns out that he did not have socks on and his crocks had holes in them, his feet were freezing. We laid down in the tent, I was quite warm and Daniel did not want to leave. However James just kept crying that his toes were cold. I asked Daniel if he minded if we went home and we was asleep. So we threw everything into the car wet and all and drove home. I don’t even think Daniel even work up. We got home about 10:00 PM.
The next morning I was laying in my bed trying to decide how to dry everything out and I thought it would be easiest to just pull the gear out and set it all up. Then Lynn came in and asked if we could go camping, win-win, dry everything out and get to go camping with the family. So we loaded up the family and went camping in the Zuni Mountains.