In every week on Fridays Don was asking about our weekend plans and we don't want to say there is no plan for a weekend. Don was a Subject Matter Expert from him we were getting the information about an IT application. Everyday we had a meeting with him to get the knowledge from him. Arvind was a good trip planner and he planned our weekend trips in every Thursdays. But it seems there is no plan in his book for next weekend because we have already visited almost every attractions near Phoenix.
Thursday morning Arvind came with an information about a camping trip planned by another group. I have no idea what is camping all about. Arvind started explaining about camping. He said "We will go to a forest make a small camp and stay in that camp for whole night". "Oh it will be a great experience" I exclaimed. After a brief discussion we decided to go for camping in that weekend.
Camping will not be like other trips it requires lots of preparation before the trip. We started buying required commodities on Friday which includes Food Items, Sweater/Thermals, Tent etc. Arvind checked the weather forecast and said "There is a 60% chance of rain on Saturday". Usually temperature in camping ground is less than 4 degree.In case of rain it may go down below 0 degrees. We started for camping on Saturday morning and a 2-3 hours drive will take us to our destination "Rim Lakes Vista Trail"
We reached the destination by 9:30 am. It was a slightly elevated location with lakes and full of green trees. We went to see Woods Canyon Lake first and it was a calm place with moderate wind. It was raining outside but it did not refrain us from move around and took some photos.
We went for a small hiking to view the place more closely and it was refreshing and realized that nature is giving always views which Rejuvenate our senses. We walked for more than 2 hours in that forest to enjoy the nature. We saw some trees were down and started decaying after its long service to the nature. Nature is smart in recycling and renew anything organic.
It was afternoon at 2:00 pm and all of us were hungry and need to take some food to revive ourselves. We went back to camping ground and took our lunch. "We should set up our camp in camping ground before sunlight fades". Abey said. Abey was our trip leader. Tent materials have been taken from our car and we started building our tents. I can hear different sounds of birds now. It was a wonderful experience to listen sounds from nature. It always has a natural rhythm and help us to soothe our mind. I saw a crow sitting on a tree and making sound in its own rhythm. "Oh American crow has different accent" I said. Abey laughed loudly and repeated that to everyone. Everyone joined the laughter.We have completed our tents in 1 hour and now it is ready for a 1 night stay.
It was becoming more colder and we should make some fire to become warm and make our dinner. We took some charcoal and lighted fire in it using a lighter and grilled some meat for dinner.After dinner we want to go to our tents for sleeping. But rain was becoming more stronger. Our tent has not the capability to withstand heavy rain. We saw that water started to drain into our tents. We closed the draining passage and decided to sleep inside the tent. It was too cold inside the tent and there was no signs of reduction in rain. I spend 2-3 hours in tent and decided to move to car and switch on heater to escape from the cold weather.
It was a different experience all together eventhough I could not spend full night inside the tent. Early morning we checked the condition of our tent and it was wet with some water inside it. We should break up our tent and leave the camping ground by 9:30 am to reach back phoenix before lunch. So we decided to dismantle the tent as early as possible. We managed to dismantle and pack everything by 9:00 and returned from camping ground by 9:15 am.
Thursday morning Arvind came with an information about a camping trip planned by another group. I have no idea what is camping all about. Arvind started explaining about camping. He said "We will go to a forest make a small camp and stay in that camp for whole night". "Oh it will be a great experience" I exclaimed. After a brief discussion we decided to go for camping in that weekend.
Camping will not be like other trips it requires lots of preparation before the trip. We started buying required commodities on Friday which includes Food Items, Sweater/Thermals, Tent etc. Arvind checked the weather forecast and said "There is a 60% chance of rain on Saturday". Usually temperature in camping ground is less than 4 degree.In case of rain it may go down below 0 degrees. We started for camping on Saturday morning and a 2-3 hours drive will take us to our destination "Rim Lakes Vista Trail"
We reached the destination by 9:30 am. It was a slightly elevated location with lakes and full of green trees. We went to see Woods Canyon Lake first and it was a calm place with moderate wind. It was raining outside but it did not refrain us from move around and took some photos.
We went for a small hiking to view the place more closely and it was refreshing and realized that nature is giving always views which Rejuvenate our senses. We walked for more than 2 hours in that forest to enjoy the nature. We saw some trees were down and started decaying after its long service to the nature. Nature is smart in recycling and renew anything organic.
It was afternoon at 2:00 pm and all of us were hungry and need to take some food to revive ourselves. We went back to camping ground and took our lunch. "We should set up our camp in camping ground before sunlight fades". Abey said. Abey was our trip leader. Tent materials have been taken from our car and we started building our tents. I can hear different sounds of birds now. It was a wonderful experience to listen sounds from nature. It always has a natural rhythm and help us to soothe our mind. I saw a crow sitting on a tree and making sound in its own rhythm. "Oh American crow has different accent" I said. Abey laughed loudly and repeated that to everyone. Everyone joined the laughter.We have completed our tents in 1 hour and now it is ready for a 1 night stay.
It was becoming more colder and we should make some fire to become warm and make our dinner. We took some charcoal and lighted fire in it using a lighter and grilled some meat for dinner.After dinner we want to go to our tents for sleeping. But rain was becoming more stronger. Our tent has not the capability to withstand heavy rain. We saw that water started to drain into our tents. We closed the draining passage and decided to sleep inside the tent. It was too cold inside the tent and there was no signs of reduction in rain. I spend 2-3 hours in tent and decided to move to car and switch on heater to escape from the cold weather.
It was a different experience all together eventhough I could not spend full night inside the tent. Early morning we checked the condition of our tent and it was wet with some water inside it. We should break up our tent and leave the camping ground by 9:30 am to reach back phoenix before lunch. So we decided to dismantle the tent as early as possible. We managed to dismantle and pack everything by 9:00 and returned from camping ground by 9:15 am.
Experiences always helped us to grow and improve our personality. Camping trip helped me to reconnect with the nature and find myself as a creature which is part of this nature.
No comments:
Post a Comment