I've got Memories to Make!

Imagine it's 1988 . . .

The Burford family of 5 is traveling West to the beautiful state of Colorado to join a group of strangers camping for ten days with no running water and no electricity! We are travelling in my dad's Ford pickup truck and to make room for us all he's added a cab so the three kids are riding for 20 hours in the back of his truck!

We finally arrive at our destination and it's GORGEOUS!! Unbelievable and breathtaking! If my scanner was working you could see pictures!

Over the years we've travelled to River Hill Campground near Creede, CO probably close to a dozen times.

Around late 2007 or early 2008, I began to plan Vacation 2010. I forbade anyone to marry or give birth or change jobs or basically do anything to prevent them from coming and now it's finally here!!

My husband has grown weary of all my excitement because he's never been so he can't imagine how much he'll love it! So you dear Blog Friends will be my outlet for all things vacation from now until July!

We had a "family meeting" after church on Sunday to discuss dates and campsites and the like and we began to sit around and tell stories to the "newbies" (i.e. Ryan, Mason, Erica, & Blake) and we laughed and had a great time. I am not sure but I feel as if my parents were bursting with pride and joy that they had crafted these memories for us!

One year, my cousin, Chad, went with us camping and we decided to take a hike to Pole Creek and spend two nights tent camping in the wilderness. My memories of hiking are not very pleasant - I was hot, tired of carrying my backpack, hated peeing behind trees, etc. Chad found a huge limb and carried it across his shoulders and we hung our bags on it and he carried them up the mountain -- probably having more to do with wanting us to shut up then out of love!! We had six people with us and a tent that slept two so invariably it rained. Josh fell in the creek and hit his head - I have NEVER seen my mother run so fast down a mountain! Basically that excursion was miserable but this past Sunday none of us had forgotten it and we all had a good laugh about it!

Another time we got stuck in construction after lunch and we had to use the restroom BAD! Traffic was going nowhere anytime soon . . . Mom went to our pop-up camper and got out one Solo cup. The three kids took turns using the bathroom in the back of Dad's truck and we passed the cup forward and Mom poured it out the window and passed it back for the next one to use.

I am sure that was not on her top 10 list of things to do in her life EVER and she was probably very unhappy that day but again we all thought it was quite funny on Sunday!

My point is that I'm probably crazy to drag two young children halfway across America in the car for 2 days and try to have a pleasant time camping with no bathtubs or Nick Jr but we'll be making memories. Hopefully one day when they grow up they will be so in love with the places Ryan & I take them that they will bring their families too and then I'll know that all the "are we there yet's" and shattered nerves and dirty clothes and lack of sleep was worth it because we'd made a lifetime of priceless memories! Let the Vacation 2010 countdown begin!

~~~~ Get your thinking caps on because soon I'll be needing packing tips, ideas for travel goodie bags for 8 adults and two kids, fun car games, etc, etc. ~~~~