Maverick Campground in Cimarron State Park off of 58.  Scott hopped out of his van door before any of us. The smell of pine trees enveloped the van. I wish I could bottle it up and share the scent. Above is the view across the street from our campsite.  Our campsite was vacant about ten minutes before we pulled into it.  This is the most beautiful campground in the area, and consequently very popular.  Besides the incredible beauty the campground is full of generations of return visitors who know each other well and treat each other like family.  Scott made friends with our neighbor Shane and his son Westren before the kids even managed to get out of the van.  Five minutes after the initial meeting the kids had their chairs at our neighbor’s campsite and they were enjoying Capri-Suns.

There was a ban on camp fires and charcoal fires due to the severe drought conditions and recent forest fire outbreaks.  The air was still a bit hazy.  This was slightly a bummer since we were intending to cook potatoes and corn over the fire, but Shane, our campground neighbor suggested just cooking it over the Coleman stove grate, and that worked out just fine.  We finished our first load of mobile laundry.  The air is so dry the clothes were dry within three hours, and that was with a short sprinkling of rain.  The rain here reminds me of Florida summer afternoons, wait ten minutes and the sun will be back.  This was the first day we had any rain.  It seems odd that we are having hardly any rain on this trip compared to our Canada and Alaska trip where it rained more days than it didn’t.  It is also odd not having any rain as back home they had 5-6 inches of rain in one day and had to shut down summer school and the local community college.

The picture on the left is the view looking up from our campground.  I spent a lot of time just enjoying this view.  We went hiking for little bits.  I carried Cody on my back most of the time.  I’m really wishing I would have pushed to bring the kid carrying backpack since I’m carrying him on my back anyway.  I squeezed in a thirty  minute run.  The air was really dry.  I stopped at another campground mid-run to get some water.  The air may be more dry, but the temperature drop is such a relief.  Admittedly, I spent quite a bit of my first run here looking for bears, but halfway through I was too tired to think about it anymore.  This was my first run in two days, and I felt it.  It may be tough getting going but once I finish I am so glad I took the time and effort to get out there.

Scott out did himself today.  He made homemade Italian sausage and green pepper pizza.  I didn’t pack or buy pizza sauce so we used diced tomatoes instead.  It wound up being a good choice as  Scott and I both preferred the diced tomatoes to the pizza sauce.  We don’t always use the Coleman stove. Scott has quite a collection of backpacking stoves, but this seems to be his stove of choice lately.

After dinner Scott made a Funfetti cake with some homemade frosting.  The frosting included: oatmeal, brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon.  It was delicious!  He made enough  to share with our neighbors who were kind enough to share some of their artichoke dinner with us.  Brooke and Westren worked hard on creating a bike  jump out of the pine needles.  Okay, Brooke mostly managed and ten year old Westren went along for the  ride.  Cody was busy on excavation of the campsite.  Notice the bike helmet.  Scott let Cody ride all by himself around the campground.  This gave me a minor heart attack, but he loved the independence.  He came back from one bike ride with Westrin and said, “Man that was fun!”

I noticed that we had a fatality on our way to the campground.  I didn’t want to add the picture, but Scott thought it was odd enough that it should be noted.  Shane, our camping neighbor, mentioned to the kids that if they put a fallen pine cone in water it will close back up again.  We tried it and the kids loved it.  Consequently we had to have bags full of swimming pine cones!  Westren was a pro at finding fun walking sticks on his many hikes.  He found the saxophone stick on our last hike of the evening.