Camping in Ephraim Canyon

This last June we went on a camping trip to the mountains outside of Ephraim, UT. It was the first camping trip of the summer but apparently the last one to be blogged. That is partly because we didn't have the pictures and partly because I thought Jill was going to write the blog entry. So back to the pictures thing. We got to our campsite before I realized that I had forgotten to bring my camera! I'm not sure how that happened. Luckily Maya had her digital camera that I had given to her a couple of years ago. But then it took a while to get the pictures off the camera as we and Emily kept forgetting. Anyway, I finally got a copy, uploaded them, and now Jill has lost her window of opportunity. I celebrated my birthday on the trip which was fun. Jill and Maya decorated the bushes with streamers and a Happy Birthday sign. One of my gifts was a water purifier for the fridge but we put it to use filtering our camping water supply. Our water actually came from the same spring the supplies water to the city of Ephraim. A mud slide had damaged the spring and there were workers trying to stabilize the hillside but the water was still cold, clean and refreshing. I was hoping to cross over the top of the mountains over to Pete's Hole and Joe's Valley (two of my favorite camping areas) but the snow drifts were still four or five feet over the road. We opted to test out our new camel backs on a hike up the dirt road for a while and had our little picnic lunch next to a stream. On Saturday we descended from the mountains and drove the short distance to Jill's Aunt Judy's place in Manti. Judy let us get cleaned up before we headed to a wedding. Jill's friend, Renee from Baltimore, was getting married at the Manti temple and we attended the reception at an historical house/inn. Jill's Aunt Faith and her cousin Erin drove up from St. George so we able to visit with also. Maya enjoyed watching Aunt Judy feed the chickens. Later that night we attended the Manti Pageant on the grounds of the Manti temple. Aunt Judy is one of the directors so we were able to sit in the VIP section. Maya actually stayed awake through the whole performance which lasted until about midnight. The rest of us struggled a bit. Sunday morning we enjoyed a great breakfast then we all went our separate directions. Here are a few more pictures of our camping trip.