Our Mystic Easter

The time was 5:50pm on Saturday April 19th, 2025. We had a fast-paced day at work and I had 10 minutes left of my shift. The past few weeks I had been red-lining in my mind, battling the monotonous routine of every day life. I'm counting the seconds as my mind runs down the checklist of what we will need for our Easter adventure. We are going camping.

6pm hits, I shake my boss's hand and run out the door. We are attempting to depart no later than 7pm to get up to the mountains. I get home to find that Alaina and Ella have packed everything we needed. I show a quick bit of gratitude as I scurry about to pack my bag.

I have an amount of apprehension about this trip as it marks the first adventure for our newest addition to the family, Mystic the (soon to be) adventure corgi. So Alaina, Ella, Wayland, and I, accompanied by our three dogs — Lilly, Sindu, and Mystic — load up in our vehicles and head to the adventure's first stop, Maverick. With the tanks full, we are on the road by 7:10pm. Destination: Pine Flatts.

The drive up the 55 was beautiful as always. The early evening sun gleaming over the hills and reflecting off of the water reminds me that the struggles and worries of life can always be washed by time with nature. Relaxing my anxiety with the radiant scenery and my good vibes playlist, Ella and I start talking about life and rewinding old memories by finding old playlists we used to listen to on road trips.

We come up on Pine Flatts to find the gates to the campground are closed. No worries — this is the area I spent last Easter, I know of a campground close by with no gates. We roll down the road to Deadwood Campground. A few groups of people there, plenty of spots open.

There is still a bit of light when we park, but it's fading fast. We scramble — all of us and the dogs explode out of the vehicles and Alaina and I start setting up the kids' tent. With the dogs prancing about, the kids helping where they can, we are trying to beat the sunset. It's getting cold so we decide to finish the tent and start a fire. Ella, being a champ, was inflating the air mattresses for her and Wayland.

Well past dusk, we start a fire. About a week before this, I was gifted three large totes of firewood from my work, and it helped make this trip happen. Blessings. In a not so stellar moment of mine, I had forgotten to charge some of the lanterns, but it was pretty fun fumbling around in the dark. The kids take the two big dogs in the tent for the night. Alaina and I round up the corgi and retreat to the van.

It's been a long time since I've had a night in the van — it brings me a peace that is hard to explain. We have a mini heater, so we gave the kids all but one of the blankets. Unfortunately, this is the night that the heater decides not to work. It keeps lighting, then burns out. So needless to say, it was a pretty rough night with our thin blanket and a corgi that doesn't understand leg space. Shivering, we enjoy a few drinks and some snuggles to stay warm.

After fighting with the heater all night, we awake to some knocking on the van door. The kids are outside waiting for a fire. I had to get the kitchen set up before we could start boiling water for coffee. The kitchen is up, the fire is growing. Alaina finishes up the coffee as I show the kids how to chop up the firewood.

We come to the crashing realization that we had forgotten the creamer. So we sit around the fire, drinking our instant coffee sludge water, watching the children running around camp wielding axes.

The original plan was for Alaina and Wayland to go enjoy an Easter party while Ella and I stay in the woods and go for a hike until they return. For time and distance reasons, Alaina decides to stay. This made me happy but also made me concerned that she was missing something important to her.

Me and the kids start trying to chop up a log we found at a nearby site. We all take turns, sinking the axe in as far as we can get it. Alaina informs us many times that we are approaching the dismemberment of this log all wrong. We continue to haphazardly chip away at it until she gets frustrated enough and jumps in. Alaina goes hard on this log. But as it is a larger contender than we all assumed, me and the kids abandoned the log and chose to go on a hike up the ridge.

Ella, Wayland, myself, Lilly and Mystic are off up the hill. Sindu, not being an adventure dog, is tired of all of our bullshit. She frumps around and waddles into the tent. Alaina continues to go to town trying to rip that log apart.

Lilly takes charge and runs up the trail. It's a pretty steep one. I get amusement out of seeing the corgi's legs move at light speed trying to keep up. Ella and Wayland impress me by getting to the top of the ridge. Ella says it's too high and heads back down. Wayland and I keep walking along the narrow trail with the dogs overly excited with the new scenery. We stop for a while and talk.

We turn around and make our way back. At the rest points, Mystic is to the point of just laying in the middle of the path out of exhaustion. I have to pull the corgi down the hill. When we get back to the campsite I can see it from the ridge. It's a beautiful sight.

The kids got to swing about in the hammocks for a minute before we all decided to head to the hot springs. I was a tad bit worried about making this trek with all of the dogs. Mystic and Lilly were so excited. Sindu was not. But she loaded up anyway and down the road we drove to Pine Flatts.

Pine Flatts has a secret. If you travel down to the left and wade through the river, there is a pool tucked behind some rocks on the face of the mountain. So naturally, everyone went ahead with excitement. This left me wading through a river holding a corgi, while battling a 100lb pit bull, pulling her through the river with two bags on my back. If that wasn't challenging enough, getting out of the river there are slippery wet rocks that the dogs and I had to climb up. Alaina met me halfway down for Mystic as I was trying to push Sindu up this wall.

After all that fun, I got to run around and climb the rocks while everyone was playing in the pool. Alaina wasted no time fortifying the rock walls that held the water in. She was using sand and water as mortar to hold the larger stones in place. With her efforts, we were able to enjoy an even deeper hot springs pool.

After a while, the water bored the dogs and they decided to chill on the cliff. River plunge time. The kids chickened out, but me and the lady hobbled down the rocks and threw ourselves into the freezing river. It was crisp. The snow melt running down from the higher mountains was felt like sharp needles all over the skin as it tightened. I felt alive again. I crawled back up to the pool and submerged myself in the warm water. It felt great.

The kids were exploring and playing with water guns as the dogs were laying on all of our dry clothes, getting them soaked. It was a grand ol' time. When it was time to go, everyone flew off ahead leaving Wayland and me behind with Sindu. Helping both of them back through the river was a challenge, but not quite as bad as on the way there. The walk through the woods back to the car was relaxing.

Walking tacos for dinner — the kids grabbed their mess kits and Alaina served up some ever so delicious food. I reflected a bit on how impressed I was with Sindu. One of my goals this trip was to see how Mystic was going to do, and it was the lazy potato that impressed me.

Before the sun was going down the kids convinced us to scamper down to the river, through the woods and explore the not so easily reached areas of the riverside. We ran through the woods, hung out by the river, and when we got back we started a fire with the log that Alaina had split. After a while it was dark and the kids and dogs were exhausted. Alaina and I went to the van for a night of music and conversation. This night we made the kids share one of the comforters so we had more than a thin blanket. A magic comforter — we didn't have any issue with warmth. We faded out listening to some good music.

The next morning we didn't receive a knock on the van door. Yesterday must have worn Ella and Wayland out. The dogs didn't even bark. We got to sleep in and wake up at our pace. Alaina makes more sludge water as everyone slowly rises. I start doing little things around camp to make sure we are ready to go when we choose to.

Alaina cooks up some sausage, eggs, and bacon and damn it was great. We mosey about getting our things together and get to the point where it's time to leave. We load up and head back towards the 55.

We make it to Horseshoe Bend and I notice Alaina pull into a gas station. Poor Wayland had gotten car sick in the mountains. All of that delightfully delicious sausage, eggs, and bacon was now painted all over the inside of her car, and on Wayland. She gets him cleaned up and we decide it's ok to get some coffee after all of that.

Pulling into the driveway, I'm dreading unpacking. It wasn't actually that bad and that made me feel pretty good. A successful Easter adventure. A great time to recreate and rise in the woods. The kids didn't skip a beat — they cleaned up and ran to the park to see their friends. After showers, we got some yummy snacks and started watching Gladiator 2.

It was a fantastic adventure. And I now officially have… an Adventure Corgi.