Dogwood Camping Highlights of Day Two

While we were camping in the forest, camping doesn't always mean the quiet time with nature that I imagine while planning. For instance, our camp site butted up to the local high school, which has a band that practices their drum line in the evening and plays Arrowsmith at six o'clock in the morning. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, especially after the ample three hours of sleep I think I got that night.

Day Two of camping was spent hiking and sightseeing. The plan was to first hike the short trail of Heaps Peak Arboretum. Once again, the kids did very well... except when Simon was "all out of exercise", which was quite a bit.

When I walked with Simon, who had to wear my sunglasses lest he whine that his eyes were going to get sunburned in the hot sun, we trailed behind and took selfies.

The western fence lizard was the only reptile we saw while in San Bernardino. Here Brad takes a picture of a large one hiding in a log.

And here we take a few moments of silence to commemorate Brad's Nikes, which already fatigued with the daily grind of years of wear and tear, finally decided to retire and shortly thereafter... die... of old age - rather unfortunate time to pass. 

We then drove to Lake Arrowhead Village where Brad wanted to treat the family to lunch. We needed a family friendly place that wasn't McDonald's and a pizzeria/arcade was chosen. While the pizza was good, everything else was lacking.

I was a little grumpy that my lunch out on the lake was spent with children staring at the sport games on the many TV screens in the restaurant and my view of the lake was sorely lacking. But I had to pull myself out of the Eeyore mentality and recognize Brad's way of showing love to the family. The pizza was pretty tasty.

So tasty in fact that Simon was devastated when he had finished his two small pieces only to realize there was no more to eat!

But all was forgiven when Brad treated the children to ice cream (as if pizza wasn't enough) and I had a blended ice coffee. Remember that three hours of sleeping mentioned above? Sigh... coffee.

Thankfully there was a shoe store in the village, so Brad replaced the dead shoes for a pair of hiking shoes. And, yes, that is a lump of chocolate ice cream on Simon's sock... right where it should be.