sub-zero days

What do you do on a last day of Christmas break when it feels (or is!) too cold to be outside, and you live in a small town with not too many indoor attractions?

This was our brainstorming session last night that somehow led us (well, Jordan)  to the idea of a campfire in our favorite spot up Green Canyon.

We bundled up the kids (and ourselves) in about a dozen layers (our thermostat read -2 degrees or so). Jordan filled up the back of the Subaru with all of his fire building gear/camping chairs/ extra warm gear. And off we went.

...to find out that Green Canyon is closed for the winter. (Nobody else is out camping in January?) Hmmm. Not to be deterred so easily (although the last remaining sunlight was quickly fading), we headed to Logan Canyon to see if another favorite spot at second dam was open.  A decent mountain of snow blocked the trail from the parking lot, but Jordan found a path along the side. But, it was a little too dark and a little too spooky for me so we changed plans and headed home. A front room floor picnic by lantern light with a  fireplace-campfire was just the thing to end our adventurous evening. :)

But, that was not the end of the campfire bug. I woke up this morning to find that Jordan had the car nearly all packed (again) with gear for a campfire breakfast. Another round of bundling up and back to second dam we went.

And the results of our breakfast campout in a foot of snow and 2 degree weather? Jordan called it a great success! :)  Our toes were frozen (!!!) though we propped our boots up at the fires edge (first snow-shoveled out by Landon and Jordan) but the rest of our bundling was a success and kept us warm and toasty. The kids ate almost an entire bag of marshmallows (the pancake batter froze before it could cook...)  and afterwards we felt as grateful as can be for a warm car/house/any place with heat... We came home and enjoyed our pancake breakfast (lunch) in our nice and cozy home, and we made a list of improvements that might be made (shoe sole heat packs, build the fire while Debbie and the kids wait in the car, a tougher camp stove...)

What an adventure!