902 Stairs and A Glow

Can I just say how much I LOVE camping? This weekend was awesome! Some friends and I went camping on the Idaho side of Bear Lake. Best thing: No campground! My friend, Tyler, who is from Ovid took us up into the mountains and we found a campsite off the beaten path.
We started out the day with some spelunking (cave exploring for those who don't know) in the Paris Ice Cave. Idaho makes me smile. There were huge patches of snow in the mountains even though it's the end of July. Inside the cave there was snow and mud everywhere! And yes, I threw a couple snowballs. I couldn't help it.
To get to the cool part of the cave, you have to crawl under an overhang. The guy that was with us is around 6 feet tall and kept getting stuck because he had his backpack on. Can you guess what happened next? I ended up carrying the backpack because I was the smallest person there and I fit under the overhang with it on.
We next visited the famed Minnetonka Cave. It's home to nine rooms of stalactites and stalagmites and 444 stairs with a constant temperature of 40 degrees. If you do the math it comes out to 888 stairs to go in and out of the cave. It comes to a total of 902 stairs if you include the stairs to get to the cave entrance. Not that I counted or anything.
The other awesome things about camping are campfires and star gazing. I can stare at these for hours on end. In fact, I did. I alternated between the stars and the campfire before I went to bed and then just at the stars after trying to sleep with four noisy, giggly girls sharing the same tent with me. Then like all camping experiences I was up early but it wasn't the usual 5am it was 4am. Thank you body for still being on East Coast time.
The next day we swam in the actual lake and I got a little sunburned. I guess it's what I get for not putting sunscreen on in the first place. The good thing is that it doesn't hurt at all; it just looks horrible. In fact, at church yesterday people kept remarking about how much sun I got. The best remark yet: "Jessie, you have this certain glow about you today. A nice red glow." Thanks Ryan and may I also say that you had a nice glow about you as well. We were equally sunburned but the difference was he put sunscreen on.
Ah! The perks of going camping in Idaho with friends. I hope to post pictures soon!