Brady Guest Blog - Brady's trip to the Sand Dunes

Brady wrote this and it is pretty long (he's long winded like his Mom). Thanks Brady for being a guest blogger!

Okay, so this spring break, Taylor invited me to go to Bruno Sand Dunes. I'm glad he did, otherwise I would have gone to school, while everyone asked me what I did over my weekend and have my response be something like I was a sad, lazy teenager. Well, apparently, my mother had me trained by middle school, to buck up, and suck in those embarrassing photos with other people in them, so she could... could... scrap book! But now I guess I'm trained and I'm the only one who will be in a picture without any groaning or hesitation. (Unlike Brian, who is bending over in embarrassment, while I made the best of it and made him look even more ridiculous while he wasn't looking ^_^)

Well, after the long wait, it was finally time to head off, after loading all of our camping gear into the truck. We set off, for a nice... long... long-long ride in the truck. So, to entertain ourselves, we did what any group of boys would do, we played Slug Bug. We also added in our personal variations to it, like also counting Hummer Bummers (Hummers), Cruiser Bruisers (PT Cruse rs) and Copper Bobbers (Any cop car that wasn't a motorcycle.) We started to save them up, so we could get back at people twice as hard (oh the joy, oh the pain.) While I was the feared leader! For a while anyway, until I used up all my saved points, and the others passed my by a long shot. (I think I started to develop a small, lite colored bruise when Taylor hit me in the arm seven times in a row.)
I felt sort of bad when we stopped at our campsite, and Taylor's Dad wanted to set up the whole camp while we went off and played at the Sand Dune. I'm not one to leave all the work to one person, but, hey, if he really wanted to, who was I to refuse him. So, Taylor, Brian, TJ, and me all set off on a paroles journey to the bowl. (no pictures because Cherie, Taylor's mom, nor her camera were included on that journey.) Go left to right on the picture above, we have TJ, me, Taylor, and then finally Brian.
This would be me, crawling up the dune. When you go up and down it a few times (mainly up it,) your legs feel tired, because of the uphill slope, so sometimes, its easier to just get down on all fours and crawl! I'm the only one doing it in that picture, and according to a kid that was in my scout troop (until I got out *cheers* = D I mean... ahh dang... = P) he said that I don't have any muscle, that I have a layer of marshmallow under my skin. Its true, I'm not that ripped, I have a 1 pack and I'm proud ^_^.
Anyway, so we play in the sandand then went back, because we are hungry, and ready to snack a little. Then we played in the sand some more, then, exhausted and ran down. Then we went back to the camp and ate some tacos. Although, I wasn't too satisfied with the hard shells, because half way down, they were all broken (oh the sadness,) but, me and my marshmallow managed. After eating our tacos, I was very exhausted, and wanted to take a nap, (like the lazy teenager I am). Then after being awaken by Taylor and Brian, we headed back to the sand dunes to play some more.
At dusk, we headed on over to an observatory. We watched a very (well how else can I put it) semi-boring presentation. Taylor's troop was doing an astronomy merit badge, I had taken astronomy as a class in middle school, and felt like I knew more then some of the information given on the presentation. The other information was about Europeans, and their mission to this moon, and how many light years this was away from this, and blah, blah, blah blah, (I'm sorry if this offends Bro. Bakow, it really wasn't all that of interest to me.)

After the Semi-boring presentation, we went outside to meet, the cold night sky (I'll elaborate on it later). They were charging $3 a person to look through telescopes, and the leaders weren't expecting to buy our way into it, so we found this nice old man back at camp, who had a telescope, and let us look through it, and showed us some of the stars and constellations.

After some hanging around in an even colder night, as the warmth from the sun seemed to totally leave the atmosphere of the Bruno Sand Dune area. I settle in to my small, single layered sleeping bag, on a stiff, styrofoam mattress. I don't like Brain all that much, and him and Taylor know that, so we sat and talked, just the three of us, and when Brian went into his little shell (sleeping bag) and pretended not to hear us, we may have said a little thing about Brian, but he was really listening to us, then he broke out in sort of a violent matter, as me and Taylor tried to tame the beast within... by feeding him a nice bowl of Chef Boy R Dee ravioli. Just kidding, it wasn't that epic, but we did talk a little, told some scary stories, and then went to bed.

I think someone put some dry ice around our tent or something during the night. I WAS FREEZING! It was colder than the Klondike Camp out. I'm usually all nice, warm and toasty on the Klondike, (kudos to my mother) but, this one, my feet were like bricks of ice! I was sitting there thinking about how I could get warm, then I thought I would go in my bag, and pull out a pair of socks. I reach blindly into my bag, and feel something hard and covered in plastic... Hand warmers... I had totally forgotten that I had taken them with me! -.- So, I pull out a nice big hand warmer, but it was a different kind of hand warmer then I was usually familiar with. It took forever to warm up! It didn't really help me, so I suffered through it.

I woke up the next morning, and enjoyed a nice breakfast burrito. Only the tortilla broke, and all the eggs and cheese fell out, so i just ate scrambled eggs, and tore off pieces of tortilla to eat here and there. Then Brian and Taylor told me that I snored in the night! I was soooo embarrassed! They told me that I would snore, then roll over into a different position, then move again, and start snoring again! I felt really bad, but, in the end, I think I would have to blame it on my mother, because she is a snoring machine! (If you watch a few home movies with her, you would understand) -.-

Anyway, we play on the dune some more, and then head on back home. Of course we played Slug Bug again with our same variations, and passed a wreck with a whole bunch of copper boppers, which sadly Taylor got...

And that's my Exciting/Exhausting/Painful/Cold/Semi-Boring/Embarrassing/Fun camp out with Brian, Taylor, some of Taylor's scout troop.