GFA Cold Guy's Camping Trip 2010

A groups of us guys and boys went cold weather camping at Lake Mineral Wells State Park. We do this once a year. People think we're crazy but that's alright...as long as you go prepared there's nothing crazy to it! haha! We had warm gear and 0 degree sleeping begs plus other kinds of insulation such as air mattresses that kept us really warm. I slept like a bear and didn't get cold at all during the night. It was only cold going in and out of the sleeping bag. It did get down to about 8 degrees or less and in the morning things were frozen and water even froze before our eyes. I like the cold weather...if only it had snowed! haha! The picture above is of Davy Crocket. We encountered him in the wilderness! He was really nice!

We're cooking our food over the fire. That's how I like to eat my food while camping. I love having hamburgers and corn on the cob over the fire. I also love having steak over the fire. That's my favorite way to eat any of this stuff...anything over a fire makes the food taste so much better!

There was a restroom and shower house nearby and so we decided to be goofy in there.


We're the 3 Ninjas. From left to right it's Colt, Rocky and Tum-Tum! You'll know what I'm talking about if you've seen the Three Ninjas!


This is me all cuddled up inside my sleeping bag. This is how I slept all night. I stayed so warm and cozy!!!


On the way home we took a scenic route and encountered a llama farm. They're such cute things!


This is us at Lake Mineral Wells, overlooking the lake!

One thing you can do at this place is crawl and squeeze through caves. It was a ton of fun!

This is us in a cave!

Me and the little boys! I'm glad they could come along!

Me and Gabe!

Me and the boys again on the lake shore!

I didn't really fall in or come close to falling in. It sure looks like I did though!

The Cold Guy's Camping team on a rock!

Me and Steve enjoying the wilderness and this rock!

I enjoyed crawling through these caves!

We had our machetes out in case we encountered a bear or a muskrat or something!

Gabe and I! He was so cute all bundled up!

Gabe and I again! aww, he's such a cutie all bundled up!

Friends from Iowa came to visit me and GFA!

I had a couple friends from Iowa come drive down to visit me and GFA for a week. There names are Jason and Brandon. Three of the days they were here, they volunteered at GFA. They got to work in my department. They were really blessed and overwhelmed with the hospitality here at GFA with so many people wanting us over for dinner. We got to go over to a couple families' house for dinner, including my Bales family! We ate so much food when they were here but my friends were blessed. They loved being at GFA so much and they hope to visit again. They were blessed by the GFA family here and enjoyed the prayer meetings so much...this impacted them so much that they are wanting to do a weekly prayer meeting at our home church in Ames. I pray and hope that they do move forward and start something like this! It was fun to have friends staying at my apartment. It added more liveliness to it! haha!

One day, we went to the Ft. Worth Stockyards and we befriended this cute longhorn. He became such a friend that when it was time for these long horns to parade down the street, this long horn stopped as he passed up and gave us a friendly look. It was almost as if he had stopped for us and smiled at us. He remembered us. It was cute and I've never seen anything like this. It was so cool!

This is Bob the longhorn!

I'z a cowboy now! Yeehaw!

From left to right it's Brandon, me, Danny and Jason! We're in the fulfillment center at GFA!

This is Jason and Brandon helping out in Fulfillment. They got ministry welcome kits together to be sent out to new donors and sponsors to introduce them more to GFA!