Spring Break Part 2a

I will skip the apologies and just admit that I'm a lazy blogger these days!  I promised part 2 of our Spring Break trip, two weeks ago!  Here it is:  we went camping.  Of course!  In the desert.  Of course!  The new thing for us was to visit a new area:  Rainbow Basin near Barstow, instead of Joshua Tree as we have the past few years.  It was great!  We loved it!  The camping area was nearly empty (everyone already took their Spring Break) so we really enjoyed the wilderness by ourselves.  But of course, that's not enough...there are pictures too!

We were surprised to see that there were actual playgrounds in Owl Canyon Campground (usually, the naturally occurring geology is the playground when we're camping)...and not only that, but of the four playgrounds there, one was handicapped-accessible.  Go figure!

The boys in their Jeep.

The view of our campsite from the hill above.

Konrad the mountaineer.

The boys washing dishes.

Natalie and me on a hike.

The boys on the same hike.

Another playground...time to climb the man-made structures.

Lukas enjoyed jumping out of the swings.

Tom and me at the trailhead, after we returned.  We almost didn't do the hike because of the "moderate difficulty" sign, but it was only the first 100 feet that had challenging stepping for Natalie...after that it was easy breezy.

We did a lot of fun stuff on this trip, like putting Mentos in a soda bottle and watching it explode.

Here the boys are drinking some of the soda in an attempt to get the Mentos out and eat them.  Yuck!

I love this picture of Natalie!

At the BLM museum in Barstow, the most interesting thing is the Old Woman Meteorite, which is the second largest meteorite found in the United States.  Lukas and Konrad are studying astronomy right now, so it was perfect timing!

The boys brought their radio-controlled Jeeps, but they spent more time on their bikes or just running around.

This is the first time I've used the Dutch oven in at least 10 years...a few briquettes on top and a few on the bottom and it heats the meal like an oven. And everyone loved the chicken enchillada casserole!

One of our dinner views.

Natalie swinging at sunset.  She really enjoyed getting several swings in every day.  So unusual for a camping trip.

Lukas helped out a lot with pushing the other kids on the swings.

Every day, the weather report predicted wind...and it was a little windy, but not as bad as we expected.  Still, we set up the campfire in the campsite next to ours so the smoke wouldn't blow on our tent.

Dominik snuggling in his sleeping bag!

Lukas and Konrad climbing the hills next to our campsite...

...while Dominik gets the first hot chocolate of the morning.

Lukas and Konrad arriving back from their expedition.

Dominik pulled his metal Jeep by sitting on the rope.  So cute!

Of course there are more pictures, so this is only the end of the first half of the second part of our Spring Break.  I intend to post again soon!