After a somewhat late start and bad traffic, we finally arrived at Lynx Lake at 4 pm. All the campgrounds were full. We ended up in a "primitive, dispersed" campground, which is basically a spot off an old forest service road where you are forbidden to have any fires, and there are no outhouses, water, or picnic tables. Ack! We weren't prepared for that. I had made up little tinfoil dinners to pop under the coals of our campfire, but since that was out, we needed plan B. No problem, we will just cook it on the campstove. Oh...whoops...we decided not bring that because we were trying to simplify after we had packed all the other gear! Doh! We didn't even have toilet paper. What can I say? We had planned for a regular campground. So, we found a little store that happened to also be a German Restaurant owned by actual Germans with accents, and bought some toilet paper. And since we couldn't cook the lovely dinner I had prepared ahead of time, we stayed for dinner. And what a dinner! The food was awesome!
So, campfires were out, even inside a metal fire ring, and we had brought marshmallows. Maggie was not too happy about no campfire, but she was adapting. We stopped at a little park next to Lynx Lake and they had bbq pits. Of course we didn't have any charcoal, but Glen found one that was still hot and being unused, so we toasted marshmallow over it.
Yes, she is toasting a marshmallow using a plastic fork. I did mention this was an "impropmtu" camping trip, didn't I? Glen remedied the situation, and Maggie eventually got a real stick.
Here we are on the docks at Lynx Lake. Its a small manmade lake (ok...what lake ISN'T manmade in Arizona?) and about half of it was closed because a bald eagle was nesting in a stag on one of the shores.
I know the following picture is probably pretty small on the blog, but if you look close, you may see Sean's first tooth on the bottom of his mouth. His second tooth is currently working its way out of the gums and is causing him all sorts of discomfort.
After the ranger kicked us out (it closed at 7pm and there were still probably 50 people there he had to boot) we headed to our primitive campground. We have a 4 man tent and Sean slept in my sleeping bag with me. It was a tight fit. I had to unzip the bag a bit which left the top half of me quite cold. Glen unzipped his bag and was trying to cover us as well. So he was cold too. Sean and Maggie were both quite toasty though. And how did we sleep? I think the next picture describes it well...
There is Glen and Sean in the early morning looking for coffee...well Glen is anyway. Who could have thought the ground would be so hard and the night so cold? Clearly we have gone soft. Nobody slept very well. Since we didn't have a stove to make coffee and we couldn't start a fire, we just packed everything up and headed into Prescott which is only 5 miles away. We feasted on gourmet coffee and decadent pastries. I must say we take camping to a whole new level. :)
So off we went to Watson lake now. Also about 5 miles from Prescott and houses the "granite dells". The rocks were absolutely amazing. Unfortunately, this is the only picture I got at the lake as Sean was extremely needy.
Maggie loved clamoring over all the boulders and would get quite high. She ended up tripping over a log on the way to the car when it was time to go home and cut her chin and scraped both hands and knees. Brave little girl didn't want any of the kids around to see her cry so she toughed it out as I cleaned her wounds and put bandaids on. Let out a few sobs and whimpers in the car after the fact.
The lake was gorgeous. We could not believe how cool it was. Just completely lined with rock boulders balancing on one another and some jutting out of the water. Glen kayaked first while Maggie, Sean and I hung out amongst the boulders. I had to cell phone him to remind him Maggie and I wanted a turn before it got too hot. He hustled on back. Then Maggie and I set out exploring all the inlets and steering between outdrops and jutting boulders. We will definately be back. It was awesome! Watson Lake is a no wake lake which means no motorboats. It was a kayakers dream. There were a lot of kayaks and a few canoes full of kids who didn't know how to paddle which I believe was a summer camp. ;)
After that, we stopped for lunch but both kids had fallen asleep in the car so we took our food to go and headed home. Our 24 hour mini-vacation was complete.
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