The Family Tree

John comes from a camping family. He grew up camping up in the high backside of Soapstone just off the Mirror Lake Highway. Not content to camp in the campgrounds, they would take the twisty, turny switchbacks and pull their trailer up to where no sane person would dare to tread. They learned about and told stories of the Spanish gold that was buried in the Uintahs, and would spend hours and hours exploring the area. They have a name for every spot they camped in. Corner Camp, Hawk Point, Buckskin Ridge, Sheepherders Camp, Bear Pond, Lightning Ridge... They found abandoned mines, had run-ins with bears, found ancient (or at least really really old) artifacts... Years and years of memories are in those mountains for John and his family.

John came home from his mission on July 15?, 1993. Two weeks later, I was in Jackson Hole camping with my family, and he was up at Soapstone camping with his. We missed each other terribly - we had already become inseparable. (my family swears I was horrible, but that was only when they started teasing about staying up there longer... but whatever.)

His mom says that he was focused on finding gold that trip. So we could get married. She says that they found a caved in mine shaft, and he spent hours digging.

Anyways, on that trip, he carved our names into a tree.

...five months to the day later, we were married.

I haven't been up there with John and his family for years. I usually let him just take the kids on his own. Camping isn't really my thing.

But this weekend, we drove up for the day and found our tree.

We added the rest of our family's names.

Very sweet.

But I still don't like camping.