Our adventures of camping

This past weekend, a group of us went camping up by Golden, CO.... it ended up being 7 of us going (turned into 6 of us).

We met at 1 pm, made sure we had everything we needed and then headed up the mountain to the camping location. From the parking lot, it was a 1 mile hike to the site- so seriously loaded up with gear/bedding/food/cooler- we slowly but surely made our way to the camp spot. We had WAAYYY too much to carry, but somehow made it to the site.

We set up camp, got some beers out and just hung out. Adam, Jamie and Luna Smith came along and so did Zach Harmon and his roommate Chad (with his dog Drake) and Chad's friends Laura. The dogs had an absolute BLAST between the three of them. They got along great and just ran and played for hours on end... that is, until I noticed Tyson limping. Poor Tyson, he ripped BOTH of his front paw pads.... and was in pain. It was so sad- but there wasn't anything we could do at that point. Luckily, Chad had some doggie shoes with him, so Tyson wore some on his front paws the rest of the night... .
Depressed...
During the day, we decided to go exploring. So, we were not on any trail and started hiking down the mountain from our campsite. Everything was going fine until Laura, slipped and literally sat into a patch of cacti. ooouuchhh. Jamie and I (just meeting her a few hours ago) had to pull out the needles from her upper thigh, buttocks and upper- inner thigh for the next half hour or so. I mean, she had to take off her pants, bend over a rock and just let us do work on her. She was in pain and thankfully Jamie and I were there to help. She had to walk back to camp with her pants off because there were so many needles stuck in her pants. Poor girl. She ended up calling a friend to come pick her up because she was just in too much pain to stay the night.

The three pups and Laura right before the slip...

After Laura left, Adam Smith whipped up some chili and we just sat around the campfire talking, drinking and having a great time (all except for Tyson). When it was time for bed, all of the boys were pretty good to go and when Adam and I got back to our tent- it was so windy- that one of the stakes had come out of the ground. It is easier said than done to fix this in the darkness and sometime during this period of time, Adam cut his toe fairly bad. Ya... the Griffins just had a rough time and it gets rougher.

We finally get into bed and go to sleep. I wake up with the worst stomach ache. So bad, I end up puking several times. Ya... not cool. And I can promise you all, this was not from drinking. I finally felt ok and slept the rest of the night, but then Adam woke up with the worst hangover. And getting back to the car was not so fun for him, or Tyson. Poor Ty literally limped and whimpered his way back to the car.

We are going again next weekend and the Griffin clan will be much more prepared next weekend!! I just hope Tyson can heal up enough to go. For now, he is limited to short walks to go to the bathroom only and he is bandaged up.

Poor little boy.

Lastly, and totally off topic, but Brian Seacat is living with us for the month of Sept! He arrived yesterday afternoon and started his rotation this morning at the same hospital Courtney was at last month. I think we will have a pretty great time with Brian. He is training for an iron man, so I am hoping some of his workoutness will rub off on me. Oh! And he is helping us get Tyson healed up... I mean, if you are going to be a Doctor, that means you are pretty much a Vet- right?!