camping field trip.

last weekend, we got to go on a fun getaway!

jon joined a few toyota forums on the internet, and has been conversing with guys who have the same hobby that he does: fixing up toyotas and taking them off-roading. 

this weekend, they planned a whole trip to Big Bear.

Jon and i thought it'd be the perfect time to use our new tent and sleeping bags. 

I left all the camp planning up to Jon, and he did great!

here is a picture of the truck, all ready to go with our camping gear and food in the back!

(he motioned for me to wave...)

(also, please notice the little marine buddy on Jon's antenna. cute huh! i got that for him. it's too bad he got lost at some point during the trip...)

this was the view driving up. it was so nice being up in the mountains again with fresh air. we sort of missed the freeway we were supposed to get on, and didn't notice until twenty miles later....that made jon a smidge grouchy, seeing as how he was eager to get there. it made him feel a little bit better to stop at the mcdonalds that was off the exit we were U-turning on and get a $4.99 twenty piece nugget. which he only ate half of. the 10 left-over nuggets sat in between us in the truck for the rest of the trip. 

even though it was a little later than anticipated, we finally made it up there. we met up with an online friend of jon's (seriously.) and he (roland) showed us to a free campsite were we set everything up. 

jon even got us an air mattress and a pump! he pumped it up, and then i made our bed. i thought we would be warm with the air mattress, comforter, mummy bags and two blankets over us, buuuutttttt.......i was wrong. 

we went on a night run with roland and his friend. it was somewhat sketchy, but i think i was less nervous because i couldn't see the big rocks that we were driving over. 

i actually liked riding on the trail in the truck at night better than during the day.

i froze all night in the tent, so was happy when the sun came up and it was time to meet up with all the other drivers. 

this is part of the group that we did the trail with. 

they all let some air out of their tires so that they would maneuver better over the rocks and gravel.....i think.

it was a pretty and somewhat scary trail. we were driving (and waiting for people to do the difficult obstacles) for almost five hours. it was fun for Jon to see what his truck is capable of, and to watch the other drivers do the obstacles after him. 

after a long, dusty day, roland offered up the idea to go to a swimming hole. seeing as how we were all tired and really dirty, we thought that cool water would be a perfect way to unwind. 

 the water temperature was perfect for the 20 minutes or so that we stayed in it. it was really clear; you could see the rocks on the bottom. it felt so good to wash off and swim around.

 nick's truck, and jon behind him.

 

it was hard to get good pictures of them doing cool stuff because they did it so fast that the pictures ended up being blurry. i like the one on the left though, with jon speeding towards scared roland. 

the picture on the left was taken on our way home from the swimming hole. you can see where we swam in the bottom right. it was a beautiful drive home.

while we were driving through this brush, we thought we'd give the wild critters a treat, so we threw the remaining ten chicken nuggets out the window. i assume that they were very grateful.