Camping a Recipe for Summer Treats & Reads
My hubby, our dog, bird, turtle and I love to trade the jungle of civilization for a few days of paradise relaxing in the cool quiet of a Rocky Mountain campsite with a mesmerizing book and evening campfire. That’s my idea of Summer Treats and Reads. Okay, let me qualify what camping is to us. We have a fifth wheel trailer with all the creature comforts required, left tent camping behind a long time ago. LOL
Favorite camping areas in Colorado are: Rocky Mountain National Park a stones throw from Estes Park is a great hiking and biking destination. Twin Lakes in the Pike & San Isabel National Forest is wonderful for kayaking and mountain biking. Both these areas are dry camping, no services but with a generator or solar panels you are all set.
Another fun place is Steamboat Lake, a Colorado State Park, the kayaking is good, hiking with your furry friend is excellent. Electrical is available on some sites. Not far away is Pearl Lake, nice kayaking area, lots of wildlife early morning or around dusk. No motorized boats allowed. It’s also primitive/dry camping but there are several sites large enough for a 30 foot fifth wheel trailer.
These are just a few of the exciting camping area’s in Colorado. Last week we enjoyed a fun filled vacation at Lake Vallecito which I detailed in the prior post.
Mueller State Park is close and a great weekend trip to the mountains. Cheyenne Mountain State Park is centrally located for visiting all the Pikes Peak Region has to offer and is open all year around. It is usually our final destination of the season. The park offers full hookups, tent pad and campfire ring on each site.
Now for the Treats: Chocolate Cherry Dumpcake Recipe. Quick and easy.
2 cans (21 ounces each) cherry pie filling
1 package (about 15 ounces) Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake mix or your favorite Chocolate Cake mix.
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter melted
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13 X 9 inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
Spread the pie filling in prepared pan, top with cake mix only, spreading evenly. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. pour butter over top, covering cake mix as much as possible.
Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. Cool at least 15 minutes before serving. Make 12 to 16 servings. Now for just my husband, myself and a couple of friends, we cut this recipe in half and use a 9X9 inch baking pan or a cast iron dutch oven. Yummy!
For Reads: Obviously, I’d like you to check out my books,
A Demon’s Witch, Charm Me (its on sale for .99), A Witch’s Journey. Otherwise, The Wild Rose Press has lots of wonderful authors with a wide variety of books. I like cozy and regular mysteries, paranormal romances books categorized as fun reads. I’m not into thrillers or weepy books. Happily Every After and feel good novels are what I read, anything else, I can get by turning on the television or internet and I don’t call that entertainment. Just me.
Please visit the other blogs listed below for fun, games and prizes. To be entered to win the $10.00 Amazon gift card I’m giving away, like my facebook page and sign up for my quarterly newsletter on my webpage at https://www.tenastetler.com. Winner will be drawn at random and notified at the end of the blog hop. Also the author’s of The Wild Rose are giving away a Kindle Fire as a grand prize. Don’t forget to enter the Rafflecopter below. Good Luck! See you next time with tales of the unexplained. Got your attention now! <giggles maniacally>
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Check out all the fabulous writers and their blogs
in the SUMMER BLOG HOP below!
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RV Memory | Visit blog
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Tricia Schneider | Visit blog
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Anna Durands Spunk & Hunks | Visit blog
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Judy Ann Davis Summer Treats and Reads Blog Hop | Visit blog
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Spicy Summer Treats with Mia Downing | Visit blog
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Linda Nightingale. . . Wordsmith | Visit blog
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Jana Richards – Journeys with Jana | Visit blog
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Summer Memories of books well read @ Peggy jaeger. com | Visit blog
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Summer on Cape Cod ~ Kathryn Knight books | Visit blog
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Summer Fun at the Beach, with Katie OSullivan | Visit blog
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I Believe Ill Go Canoeing – C. B. Clark | Visit blog
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Summertime Love is Sweeter with. . . Frozen Mango? @ Kimberly Keyes blog | Visit blog
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Wild Rose Summer Treats Blog Hop @ Brendas Blog | Visit blog
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Summer Treats and Reads Blog Hop | Visit blog
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Midsummer Magic on the Isle of Skye! | Visit blog
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My Guilty Summer Treats from Lori Sizemore | Visit blog
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Wild Rose Press Summer Treats and Reads Blog Hop | Visit blog
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Hywela Lyns post for the WRP Summer Treats and Reads Blog Hop | Visit blog
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Wild Rose Press Summer Treats & Reads | Visit blog
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Camping is a Recipe for Summer Treats and Reads | Visit blog
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The Snarkology | Visit blog
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Summer Survival Tips @ Nitty Gritty Romance | Visit blog
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Wild Rose Press Summer Treats and Reads Blog Hop | Visit blog
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Nell Castle – Summer of the Sweat Lodge | Visit blog
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Myth, Magic & Wonder Susan Edwards, Breathing Life into the Past | Visit blog
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Romance with Spice, Sydney St. Claire | Visit blog
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Author Kat de Falla | Visit blog
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Anni Fife. Exciting new author of Steamy Romance with Irresistible Heroes | Visit blog
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Summer Vacation, Victorian-Style, AND a Giveaway | Visit blog
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Wildfires, Monsoons, and Mojitos – Author Susabelle Kelmer shares how she keeps cool in a climate that is on fire! | Visit blog
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Casi McLeans recipe for Hot Reads and Cool Treats | Visit blog
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Cool Summer Reads: Jeannie Halls Romantic Suspense Blog – Where Hearts Tremble From More Than Attraction | Visit blog
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Summer treat – Adult Slushie | Visit blog
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How to Rediscover the Magic of Bicycling | Visit blog
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Charlottes Tips on How to Stay Cool in HOT New York City | Visit blog
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Caryn McGill | Visit blog
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Posted in Camping, For Fun, My Say What Blog, The Pikes Peak Region and tagged Anne Hillerman, Authors, Cheyenne Mountain State Park, Chocolate Cherry Cake recipe, Cozy Mystery, Lake Vallecito, Molly Harper, Mueller State Park, Nancy Atherton, Pearl Lake, RMNP, Romance, Steamboat Lake State Park, Summer Treats and Reads Blog Hop, The WIld Rose Press, Twin Lakes by Tena Stetler with 18 comments.
Camping Season – The Perils of Getting a Late Start
Can you believe it’s camping season again? Seems it was just Christmas and winter. Hey, wait a minute, it was just winter, Colorado had significant snow through April and into the first weeks of May. My daffodils, crocus and tulips did their best even through the snow.
Snow and winter weather made us late de-winterizing (is that even a word?) our fifth wheel trailer and truck. Uncovering the 
trailer in the wind was an experience in itself. Imagine a thirty-foot long, thirteen foot high cover billowing in twenty-five mph wind as you try to fold it up. Nearly took me off my feet (Dorthy from OZ swirls through my mine) as my hubby shouts, “Fold it the other way. ”Yeah, right, I could if I could get it on the ground,” I retorted, my words swallowed up by the wind. What’s the use of a good retort when no one hears. Kinda like that question, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it still make a sound?
Any way I digress. While parking the fifth wheel in the driveway, a strong odor of fuel permeated my nostrils, I looked under the truck and saw a steady stream of liquid puddling below the vehicle. Peering at my husband I said, “Is that supposed to be happening?” I point under the truck to the leaking fuel. “#*#? no,” he said.
After a tirade of not nice words from under the truck, my hubby ascertained the fuel pump was leaking. Okay, so you think, no big deal, just get it fixed. Right?” No way! Because my hubby trusts no one to work on his vehicles, especially brakes and fuel system, he spent Memorial Day Weekend draining a thirty six gallon gas tank. Of course we’d just filled it. He pulled the tank out and replaced the fuel pump. That done, the tank back in place, we took truck and trailer to a tire store for 8 new tires all around. Bank account drained, we brought the vehicles back and parked them in the driveway, much to the chagrin of our homeowners association (that’s a whole different story). People who don’t own an RV should never decide how long it takes to get ready. Still had to de-winterize the trailer, and get it ready for camping.
Hubby crawls under the trailer only to find a bolt holding the slide-out mechanism sheared off. What a
disaster if we’d been going down the highway. Thank goodness we weren’t. Hubby sprinted downstairs to his ton of important stuff that fills the basement and found exactly the bolt he needed. Then proceeded to remind me that’s why he keeps all the junk I bitch about. Okay… enough said. Further inspection and the trailer ground brace is loose, another trip in the basement and taa daa a can of screws and the brace is repaired.
Kayaks loaded, truck full of fuel (not leaking), trailer packed with human, dog, parrot and turtle necessities
Steamboat Lake
we’re ready. Let the camping adventures begin. On our agenda this year, Steamboat Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Lake Vallecito, Twin Lakes in San Isabell National Forest, and Cheyenne Mountain State Park. Note to self: Next year regardless of what Mother Nature throws at us, the fifth wheel comes out of storage in April.
Oh, by the way, I figured you’d rather look at pictures of places we’ve camped, rather than repairs in our driveway made this year. Was I right?
Where are you going? Did you have as much trouble getting ready as we did? I’d love to hear from you! Next week, we’ll check out favorite camping spots.
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Posted in Camping, For Fun, My Say What Blog and tagged Adventures, camping, Fifth wheel, repairs, Rocky Moutian National Park, Steamboat Lake, Twin Lakes by Tena Stetler with comments disabled.
