Camping in Crescent Falls

When we woke up on Friday morning Ryan informed me that this had been in his top ten worst sleeps. I found a pretty perfect area to put the tent, but the one small root happened to be underneath him and on top of that he was freezing. I did ok, just some cold feet and slightly sore hips because I sleep on my side.

We did eventually get up and out of our relatively warm space to go have breakfast and start the day. Ryan taught me to play Joker Rummy the night before so we played a few rounds while eating our cereal and fruit.

Without any plans for the day we took ourselves for a walk along the river and down to the waterfall again. I collected sticks along the way to make a small afternoon campfire to warm us up when we returned to camp. The downside about camping in a canyon is that it can get quite cold and sometimes it stays that way even when the surrounding areas are warm and beautiful.

Back at the camp we started our little fire, made lunch and played more Rummy while discussing what to do next. I found a rock earlier that looked like it had little crystals in it, smashed it open and found I was right. Naturally, we were thrilled and wanted to find more so walked around a different beach area on the hunt for treasure. We didn’t find any.

Having had enough of the same areas, we got in the van and drove to a place that my dad recommended to us. You will have seen Abraham Lake on my blog a few days ago because I couldn’t wait to share it with you and that’s where we went.

Only about 10 or 15 minutes down the road, but a world apart. The campground is in a valley, covered with trees and cold (though no less beautiful!), Abraham Lake is bright and open and had us stripping off layers before we even got out of the car.

It would appear that all the sun was shining right over the perfect blue lake and keeping all the warmth to itself, seemingly with all the wind as well. It certainly beat the cold we had been fighting all morning though. If I had a bathing suit with me I would have happily jumped in.

We spent quite a while walking up and down the edges of the water, taking pictures and enjoying the heat before deciding we should go back to camp.

Surprisingly the sun followed us back! We took off a few more layers, grabbed a towel and went down to the river again to get our feet wet. Ryan got his first shocking feel of just how cold this water is. Having swam in it many times before I was prepared for the pain but no less shocked by the invisible ice daggers stabbing every inch of my feet.

Once you get adjusted it’s not quite so bad and when the rest of your body is still so warm it’s a nice contrast. We only stayed for a short while before realizing it was nearly supper time and heading back.

Fire started, supper cooking, warm layers back on, cards shuffled and ready to get cozy for the evening.  We decided to cook on the fire tonight instead of using the stove, which was a nice idea, but ultimately kind of annoying. Potatoes, corn on the cob, sausage for Ryan and fake burgers for me. I would like to say I finally won a round of cards while enjoying supper, but that would be a lie.