Our granddaughter’s (Paige) birthday is in August.  We asked her what she wanted for her birthday.  She said to go camping in the trailer.  We are always happy to oblige any camping!  Roxie’s birthday is also in August as our anniversary (35 years).  It seemed like a thing to do.  We couldn’t go right after Paige’s birthday so we did it the next weekend.  We chose our old reliable, Princess campground.

Paige’s father (our son Aaron) and Aaron’s girlfriend, Rachel, decided they wanted to go also.  They decided they would stay in a tent.  Fine with me.

We decided to head up there Thursday to get a head start and they were coming up for the weekend.  They also wanted to bring their dog, Maggie, which was up to us to do since we have the truck.  It was nice to get there early.  We were able to take a naturalist-led walk around Indian Basin and saw a fawn and a woodpecker:

As we were resting, waiting for the rest of our party to show, on Friday we heard some diesel engines.  The Rough Fire had started 2-3 weeks before and we knew that there were firefighters fighting it.  The noise we heard were some Forest Service fire crews heading into the campground.  They occupied a few of the open sites and probably rested from their chores:

A couple of times various crews had to move as campers were coming in for their reservations.  We knew that there were helicopters getting water from nearby Hume Lake and we heard them from time to time.  I wasn’t worried about the fire as I knew it was a ways away.

On Saturday we all did the requisite visit of the General Grant tree but this time it was different.  Rachel had never seen it or maybe had never seen and Giant Sequoia’s.  I think she was impressed.  Here is a shot of the General Grant and the walk through tree.  Recently I was not sure that if we might ever see the General Grant after how the Rough fire has gone but it seems safe now:

One thing we noticed this year at Princess was it was very dirty and dusty.  This ight attributed to the drought and possibly because we usually don’t head her as late in the season.  Here is our campsite, and that is not my tow vehicle:

On Sunday, Aaron and Rachel left relatively early which gave us a chance to go on another walk around Indian Basin.  This time we took Maggie and Paige.  It was warming up and a bit of smoke was beginning to show:

The dreaded part was next.  Heading back down to the 100+ degree weather.

Shortly after we left they closed the highway that leads down to the Kings Canyon right by our campground.  As Maxwell Smart says “Missed it by that much!”