camping at Lost Lake

Keeping busy on the hour and half drive. Most of the ride was on beautifully scenic dirt road, but it's hard to get a two and half year old excited about looking out the window at more mountains and trees. We even saw a bunch of cows hanging out along (and in) the road.
This is the old L.L. Bean tent I camped in with my family. It still has that sweet smell of canvas, and it's full of fond memories... maybe even a few friendly ghosts. It's huge and weight about 60 pounds. I love the sound of the zipper. It's a real wide heavy duty zipper, that sounds more like sssssssss than today's zippers that say zzzzzzzzzzz.

I had a flash back when Gene and I tried to sneak into the tent after the kids had fallen asleep. I remember so well being on the "other side of the zipper" and hearing mom and dad talking around the fire until all is quite, then sssssssss creep in to bed, trying to be quite, but it's impossible to be quite with a plasticized canvas floor and nylon sleeping bags.
The tent was Cody's little entrapment. Not quite walking, and a speedy crawler, and still eating everything makes for a hectic time in the woods with this baby. But he was thrilled to have the whole tent to himself and play obstacle course with the sleeping bags and therma-rests.
Hop on Pop. One of our favorite books, and now a favorite game.
Sun set on Lost Lake. Do you know how many Lakes are called that? I know of three in Colorado, and I'm sure there are lots more in other states. And the funny thing, only one of the Lost Lakes I know is actually kind of hard to get to. All the others are popular destinations that you can drive to.
Early in the morning... I mean EARLY. Here we are trying to warm up around the fire. I can't imagine what we would do without fleece.
It was obviously too cold for a swim, but we looked for bugs and played around in the sand.

There are only a few things that are truly as good are you remember them, wooden roller coasters, the first warm day of spring, and a perfectly toasted marshmallow. You know, when the outside is all crispy, but not burned and the inside is warm... So good! An easy way to make s'mores is smush your perfectly toasted marshmallow between two Barbara's chocolate chip Animalsnackers. (organic animal crackers) But if you are a s'more purist, then of course it's got to be Hershey bars and Graham crackers.And this was our food masterpiece.