The neighborhood made the road trip out to Williams, AZ for another “Weekend in the Woods” courtesy of The Fabulous Farley’s. This was the biggest group yet…around 40….with ages ranging from 4 months to some in their 60’s and it all felt so right to be together as a group.
I can’t imagine how much work it is for the Fabulous Farley’s to organize a weekend full of food and fun for 40 people, but they did and it was another success.
The weekend always starts at O-dark-thirty, so we can get out of SoCal before the throngs of cars descend on the freeways. It was a week after the Pokeman Go craze had started…so there were warnings!
The route to Williams takes us along parts of Historic Route 66, so we made a pit-stop along the way at Seligman and the Road Kill Cafe.
I’m not kidding, the best BLT sandwich I’ve ever had. If you’re a fan of the BLT you’ll note that many times the bread is so thick and toasted that it hurts the roof of your mouth…or that there’s too much L & T and not enough B. This one was lightly toasted so the bread was still squishy and had two different layers of bacon…it was amazing..sorry I didn’t take a pic (but I found this almost approximation of what I had).
Our Thursday arrival starts with the sign up sheet for weekend…you have choices like “food prep”…my personal favorite…”cooking”, “clean up”, “kindling collecting”, “fire prep” as well as a variety of others. There are even some for the little kids so everyone feels included. Just about everyone camps in tents, except for a select few wusses…me being one of them…that sleep in the main house. I actually like the idea of camping outside under the stars…it’s the bathroom part of it all that I’m a wuss about. My bed and accommodations were comfortable and perfect for the weekend. I might do a compromise next time and rent a little motor-home? That’s kind of camping, right?
We were divided into three teams for the planned activities, which this year included, the ever popular, archery and wood chopping, as well as the new “plot improvement” and “geo-caching.” My favorite was the geo-caching…or treasure hunt…working together, running for flags, looking for the final spot where we’d find our treasure. Watching the kids run around in the forest of trees and hear the squeals of delight as we found each little flag was the highlight. It didn’t hurt that our team came in first and the next team was nine minutes behind us….just sayin’! No, I’m not competitive! I was thankful that one of the activities did not entail pulling any mulliens this year, but we’d all do it again in a heartbeat if asked.
Of course there were nights at the campfire, s’mores, the kid’s made home made ice cream, the adults had a little craft of their own and a good time was had by all. I think it’s always more fun to share the experience with pictures, so here you go….
You cannot direct the wind, but you can adjust the sails!
