Wild Horse State Recreation Area Day 1

Oh my goodness we are crazy campers right now!

We loaded up our gear and headed out to the high desert north of Elko, NV

Wild Horse State Recreation Area

http://parks.nv.gov/parks/wild-horse-state-recreation-area/
This state park has great clean facilities even though we are right in the middle of no where.
Literally, we were the only campers here.

Where do I even start to describe this area?

 It's like a scene from an old Wild West movie...and we are in it!

We enjoyed our stay and would definitely return here someday.

Our campsite was very secluded with a picturesque view of the Lake and snow capped mountains.

We spent the night alone with only the ducks and geese on the water...

Coyotes howling in the distance.

Rabbits and squirrels scurrying around after dark in the cold stillness of the desert.

We set up our camp and the winds picked up so we took advantage of the situation...

We flew kites!

Steve and Spencer flew a Spider-Man kite for a long time...

Then Spencer played with a batman glider...
which flew pretty well, by the way, lol.

We had a blow up transformer kite too.

The wind was perfect and it was a good relaxing afternoon.

We took a short hike down to the water...

Stopping to smell the wildflowers along the way...

Beautiful desert springtime blooms nestled between the sage...

Then the evening coolness set in and Steve built us a fire...

and of course we made S'mores...

I also made sage bombs for burning...

and we enjoyed a wonderful evening in the high desert, 

sitting around the campfire smelling the wild sage and smoke.

Then darkness came and we settled into our warm tent for a cold night's sleep...

I'll blog more about Day 2 and the wild antelope soon...

South Fork Recreation Area

Well, this is something we haven't done in a while. 

CAMPING

Real tent camping near Elko, Nevada at
South Fore State Recreation Area
http://parks.nv.gov/parks/south-fork-state-recreation-area/
It's a Nevada State Park.

So nice to get out in the wide open and just camp, make a fire, cook, and enjoy the views...

The Ruby Mountains behind and the reservoir in front of us!

We bought a new tent... Super easy assemble.

We also picked up lots of new gear for the cool Nevada desert.

Just what we needed since we wore out the old tent
and the rest of our supplies are in storage in Texas.

Nevada camping is different.

 So much cooler...very few bugs too.

Our site had these cute little ground squirrels running around...

providing some much needed entertainment!
There was also some rabbits that scampered around too,
we referred to them as the elusive "white rabbit"...

I wanted to follow them to wonderland, but it was not meant to be... lol

Saturday morning we drove up to the summit in the Ruby Mountains!

Really beautiful...

And we found SNOW at the summit!

in May...

This area is breathtaking, especially since it is in the middle of the desert...

and very peaceful...

The campgrounds in the ruby mountains are still closed for the season...

 but we would like to make another trip out here this summer.

We continued on a lazy drive through the Lamoille Canyon.

We stopped along the way at some of the lookouts.

beautiful views one

after the other...

Then we picnicked...

Near a river...

Went on a nature walk...

breathed in some sagebrush...

found some caterpillars...

and this interesting moth.

Back at the campground we had a storm come up that cut our trip short.
We were just getting ready to start our campfire
when 35 mile an hour winds blew in so we decided to pack up and leave.

But the night before we built a fire...

We enjoyed it and it brought back lots of memories of all our past camp outs.

We talked about them together...
the differences in camping in Nevada vs Texas

Reminiscing about Texas and all those we have camped with through the years...

Good memories my friends!

My Lovely Lake Tahoe Take 2

Hopefully I'm back to blogging with some better pictures.
I'm about a month or so behind but I should be all caught up in the next few days.
For the last few months I've just relied on my old bad iPhone camera but recently we've been using our better cameras.
These are so much better!
So on April 10, 2015 Steve had a few days off and we headed to Reno.
We spent about 3 days there just dining out and shopping, but
We saved one day for an excursion to Lake Tahoe!

and oh the trees...

They smell soooooooo good!

I wish I could bottle it all up and save it for later!

We drove around the lake and stopped at some of our favorite lookouts like...

Emerald Bay...

It was an overcast cool day, much cooler than I expected.

 here's the castle...

hidden in the trees...

Still some snow in the mountains...

We took a few pictures and moved onto Camp Richardson...

We also stopped at Ski Run Marina and Heavenly Ski Resort Base-camp...

This has to be one of the most beautiful places on earth.

I'm actually really cold here, lol.

The only wildlife we saw all day.

And of course we made a lunch stop at

The Hard Rock Cafe
To indulge in some wardrobe shopping...
lol
Life is good my friends...
I'll share our camping adventure tomorrow!