Adventures of a Family of Hicks: Kolob Campout

So I decided to start with this video because this basically sums up our trip-FREEZING! We arrived Thursday night to beautiful weather. It was night time so cold weather was to be expected. We set up the tent, pulled out the heater and bunkered down in our comfy double sleeping bag on our foam cot pads. In the middle of the night I half woke up to something that didn't quite sound like rain on our tent, but didn't think much of it. The next morning we discovered the hail/snow that had dumped on us the night before. It quickly melted, but it was freezing. And that was basically what it was like everyday the entire weekend. I wore a beanie and 3-4 layers all weekend long! I don't think I've ever camped and wanted a fire going all day everyday because it was so cold! (I wonder if being climatized to Vegas weather has anything to do with how cold we all were?) The storms rolled in and out, so we did see some blue skies and Travis did get in his float tube and fished in the lake.

Kolob Reservoir

Our friend, Ray McFarland met up with us Friday evening and got in the float tube as well. Between the 2 of them, they caught about 10 fish. Us fishermen on the shore didn't have as much luck. We also had fun on the ATV and went exploring and found a really cool view point over looking Zion National Park. Tyler and Nicole and their daughter Madison came up on Friday and toughed it out with a 2 yr old the entire weekend-very impressive! You have to know this little girl though to really appreciate how impressive this is. She is the most girly 2 yr old I've ever met! She doesn't like to be dirty and made her mom take her PJ's off because they had a spot of dirt on them. She cries when she stumbles because she gets dirty and refused to walk in the mud. We took her into our tent quite a few times and she had a blast brushing her hair and playing games. She is too funny. Nicole's brother and family came up too and we converted his 9 yr old son Austin into an ATV fanatic! Once he learned to drive that thing he could not get off! It was really cute.

Tyler, Nicole & Madison Hammond

There was an exciting event of the weekend...On Friday night we all were in our own tents chatting between the 3 of us. Just as we were starting to drift off we heard a noise at the food tent. We all thought it was someone from one of the other tents out to get a mid-night snack, until Tyler asks if we were out there or if James or Kristy were out there. Since none of us were, we assumed the worst. So Travis jumps up, grabs the flash light, darted out the tent to find a SKUNK getting into our food! Ah!!! He yelled and screamed at it and the next thing we hear is a round of gun shots going off in the direction the poor varmit ran. Thankfully it didn't spray or else that would've been the end of our camping trip! That's the 2nd time a skunk has trespassed our camping teritory. We've got bad luck with skunks.