Independence day weekend

Since we're not going on any long/far away trips this year, I thought it would be fun to do something local. Oklahoma is only 3 hours away, and I heard it's a nice place to go. My plans went from 1 week of camping, to 4 days, to overnight. I think if we would have gone the beginning of June, we might have survived a week. But in July, we were lucky to survive 1 night. It was just barely not too hot to get to sleep. But it was great to get out camping again. It's hard to believe it's been 2 years since we've last gone camping. My kids didn't even really remember what camping was like. I was also a little disappointed with the lack of "toughness" for all 3 of them. They kept asking me for permission to do any/everything. From going into the woods, to getting into the tent. etc.

On the way to Robbers Cave State Park, I noticed a shorted route on the map. The road seemed to be of decent size (on the map). Once we got on the road, we quickly discovered it wasn't very well-traveled. There would be stretches of horrible road with sharp drop-offs, and then a short stretch of nice road. Each time we reached the nice sections, we thought we had gotten back to the good road, only to discover that it went right back to crappy road. Once time, right after a small hill, the road turned sharply to the right. We were going about 60 when we hit the curve (as there were no slower speed signs), and it took all Joe had to keep the suburban on the road.

Another funny thing: the kids were so excited by the "mountains" in OK. They really are just hills, but I guess Texas is so flat that anything looks like a mountain to them. They'll be surprised if they ever see Utah mountains!

We arrived at the red-neck infested campground just in time to get camp setup before dark. We roasted some marshmellows, and hotdogs, and then the kids just wanted to get in the tent. They just love the tent.
The next morning we headed over to the caves. We came to this part of Oklahoma, because of the cave. Call me naive, but I was expecting a lot more. I guess I'm just used to Utah. There's really just 1 area with a bunch of rocks. The strangest thing to me was that you could totally hear the freeway while on top of the "mountain". We had fun exploring the caves and crevices though, and I really am glad we made the drive out there.Once it started to heat up, we headed to the red-neck infested lake. Carlton lake is where the local fire department does their annual fireworks show, so as time passed, even more red-necks showed up. While the kids and I swam, Joe took off mountain biking. The kids favorite part of swimming in the lake was looking into the water with their goggles, and seeing the green water. Also, jumping off the dock that was in the deep end. Maybe it's because of my old age, but I prefer swimming in a pool!

The Huber family in our ward celebrates 4th of July with a "burgers and bullets" party. It was great fun to visit with friends from our ward. Lenore, who lives in Hawaii, was also visiting, so it was fun to catch up with her. AmyJoy and Melodie's sister Julie was also there with her husband and son. It was fun to get to know her better, and I was surprised to find out that she is living in Melodie's old house, while Melodie moved back to Utah.

Lots of guns were shot, and Winter got to shoot for the first time. She was so excited, and actually did pretty good. There were also fun 4-wheelers, one of which Winter totally crashed. For a while, we weren't sure if she would be okay, but luckily her body took the fall very well. A few bruises, ice packs, and chocolates later, and she seems to be fine.
We closed our day with a humongous bonfire, and a few fireworks. What a great independence day weekend!