===== White Mountains Camping Trip: August 14, 2008 - August 17, 2008 =====

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Erica and I decided to gather up the puppies and head off to the White Mountains, near Payson, Arizona. It would be our first camping trip in which our destination was not Cloudcroft. We got a later start than most camping trips we take as we usually like to leave on Thursday night and be fully setup and going by Friday morning. This time we were fully setup by Friday as we spent Thursday night preparing and hanging out with our good friend [[http://www.roiratjournal.com | Glenn]] at Buffalo Wild Wings to play some trivia and have some buffalo wings.

All in all the weekend was great from the starting point of hanging out with Glenn at Buffalo Wild Wings to the camping trip. It took us about 4 to 4.5 hours to get to our camping spot, Canyon Point. It was a nice drive taking us North of Phoenix and Payson just 17 miles out of Heber. The campgrounds were quite nice, though expensive at $20 a night, or at least it seemed expensive to us. We came fully prepared with a nice panned out meal plan that included omelets, marinated chicken, carne asada, potatoes seasoned with onions, garlic and a plethora of good seasonings, hot dogs complete with Wolf brand chili and fresh corn cooked on the grill and of course a bunch of snacks and goodies. We brought two tents, one for all of our stuff and a fancy truck tent that my parents bought me a few birthdays ago.

We got to the site around noon on Friday and setup camp, the traditional style tent went up in about 10 minutes, including the rain flap. The truck tent took us more along the lines of 20-25 minutes to get setup a we were having to follow the directions as we went. All in all it was pretty straight forward though and really turned out to be a nifty tent. Little did we know that it would turn us into the celebrities of the camp ground. There were motor homes around worth 6 figures and we were the ones getting all the attention from young and old alike.

The campgrounds were quite nice though crowded and we really had a nice setup going. We were able to spend a day playing on the lake with the dogs. Turbo and Tranny jumped in, Cody observed. We are sure Tranny wasn't aware of what she was doing as it was clear that she had second thoughts once she got in the water. Turbo on the other hand loved it, we tied him on and he drug us around for a good thirty minutes... man I love that dog!!! That night we headed back to camp and were planning on possibly meeting up with Glenn and his girlfriend, but they had to cancel. Erica and I were treated to a great rain storm which we waited out in the tent, of course it lasted all through the night. Our tent kept us nice and dry and comfy, it was really cool actually. In the mean time Erica made some of the best steak I have ever had, with corn and potatoes, it really was fantastic. The best part was her hanging over the tail gate with me holding her legs so she wouldn't fall out while she prepared the food. We had a fantastic time and can't wait to do it again... maybe one of these times some of our friends might even want to join us.

==== Photos ====
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