What's Up with Michael: Labor Day Weekend

This Labor Day I decided to go camping. Because no one could go with me, I started alone on Friday morning. I could have camped at Mirror Lake, where we'll have our traditional picnic on Monday, but I decided to try for a quieter, more out-of-the-way spot, so I drove down to Christmas Meadows and grabbed one of the only two unreserved places (this campground has only 11 spots anyway).

I camped Friday and Saturday, left the trailer there so I could get back Saturday night for church on Sunday, and plan to go back Sunday afternoon with Chieko to camp and head over to Mirror Lake on Monday.

Here's my camp spot. It has lots of room for tents, and it has a double-long table. However, the table sits on a slope, so for it to be level, one end is really short. The tarps are for the rain that never showed up. The camp host said it has rained every day for the past month, which is typical for the Uintas.

For dinner I'm making Dutch-oven Mediterranean lamb stew and pineapple carrot cake with orange-raspberry cream cheese frosting.

This is the stew cooling off a bit.

And finally I am enjoying my dinner. I made a slight error with the carrot cake. When I was ready to cook it I realized it's supposed to go into a 14-inch dutch oven. I don't have a 14-inch dutch oven, and I accidentally used the only 12-inch oven for the stew. So the cake had to go into the 10-inch oven. Well, that didn't work, because it filled the oven to the top, with no room to rise. So I split the batter into two and cooked two layers. That actually worked quite well. The cake is just extra tall with cream cheese frosting in the middle and top.

What stars you can see without city lights.

Saturday morning I took a stroll up the Christmas Meadows/Stillwater trail, one of Brian's backpacking favorites (actually, I backpacked a little way up here a couple years ago). I was hoping to see some wildlife at sunrise. I saw one moose running past the cabins on the opposite side of the meadow, and a couple of trail runners (people). But that's about it. Oh, some birds, too.

And here's pretty much what I did the rest of Saturday.

I did consider renting an ATV at the Bear River Lodge, but the selection was a little lame.

It's now Saturday night, and I'm home for tonight and tomorrow morning. You'll have to wait until Monday or Tuesday for the rest of the outing.

Okay, I'm back. We drove back to our camp spot Sunday evening. This time Chieko came, too.

Jennifer and Stanton joined us in their tent. Others were going to come up, but the threatening weather scared them away. Surprisingly, the weather in the Uintas was probably drier than in the valleys. We heard a couple sprinkles during the night but woke up to blue skies with a few fluffy clouds. (Except in the direction of Mirror Lake, where the skies were black when we headed there Monday morning.)

Jennifer and Stanton cooked steaks and corn on the cob on the open fire, and Chieko and I reheated lamb stew (Chieko wasn't here for the first serving on Friday night). (Yes, that is my blue camp shirt that you've seen in every camp and lake picture for the past couple years. It's still serving me well.)

Stanton then treated us to a tent-door-as-stage puppet show. After dark we marveled at all the stars and the Milky Way. Saw a couple of shooting stars, and watched two satellites zoom across the sky.

Monday morning we drove back to Mirror Lake for the Annual Mirror Lake Labor Day Picnic. This is the group, minus the Austins. Brian and Caleb backpacked Sunday to Packard Lake, Caleb's first backpacking hike. And it was pretty strenuous. They went home while most of the rest of the group did the walk around Mirror Lake.

The weather looked like storms, especially when we got there in the morning, and we were prepared. Rain fell for a couple of minutes, so we got to try out the ponchos and umbrellas, but mostly we enjoyed a cool, dry, sometimes breezy day.