Wednesday, August 8, 2007

The forest smells like Pine-Sol

We went camping last weekend, and nothing really happened -- this is a good thing.

In past camping trips, we've had flat tires (yes, plural on the same trip), got flooded out of our camp site (again, same trip) and lost car keys. So to have a camping trip where the most drama came from the fact that Erin's niece had the chickenpox, and her brother was watching her kids, was a nice change of pace.
<---the view from our campsite

While we did hike, fish, sleep in tents, sing campfire songs and, in general, breathe in a lot of fresh air, a lot of our camping experience revolves around food. Not sure what this says about us as campers, but I don't think we would do it if it wasn't for the S'mores, hobo dinners and roasting hot dogs over the fire.


The days leading up to our trip, I was excited to leave the trappings of modern life. As much as I love T.V., cell phones and the Internet, it was going to be nice to not have them for a couple days. However it only took a day for me to miss one of them.


At the beginning of me and Erin's jaunt through the woods, we found a pond with the weirdest little salamander type creatures, with feather like things on their heads. Later with the help of the guys we caught ourselves a few of them.


Here is the weirdest thing, they looked like axolotls, which are rare in the wild. In fact the only reason I know about axolotls is because they are rare and weird looking. The point is, it was driving me nuts and my fingers were itching for a keyboard to start my Internet search.

(When I got home I found out that they were baby tiger salamanders, which look a lot like axolotls.)



The salamanders and a few itty-bitty frogs where the only things we caught, proving that having license for something does not help. Even with all my fishing gear, and some of Ryan's, I was not able to even get a nibble while fishing. But a lot of the fun is just sitting out by the water, so I'm OK with that.



Ryan did catch a fish, but I was not there to witness it. My theory is that he bought it off another fisherman, to make me jealous, or to help keep my hopes up. I was starting to believe there were no fish.
<--- Erin is "impressed" with Ryan's catch
On the second night Jolynda and Matt joined us, which was great. I know we don't really rough it, but their air mattress turns into a couch-- so we are a little more rough than them.

At night there were more stars than darkness, and it was so quiet my ears had to make up for it by buzzing. The guys gathered firewood, and in general got to feel manly-- Erin and I could feel the rise in testosterone. Erin didn't have to put honey on my toes to protect herself from bears -- the most wild creatures we saw were the chipmunks and squirrels all over camp. Ryan did melt his shoes -- drying them by the fire -- but this was not a big surprise.

Overall it was a perfect trip. The only thing I regret is the fact that we couldn't have stayed just a little longer.


On a side note: for two days in the woods we take a lot, I mean a lot of stuff. If I went to vegas for a weekend I would only take one backpack, but spend three to four times as much money. But when I go camping I take 10 times more stuff.



It's not camping without the dogs, even if we barely had room for them.

4 comments:

Shad said...

Looks like a blast! I didn't know you had it in you. Rock on happy campers.

Anonymous said...

It ALMOST makes me wish I was their.

Cole

Anonymous said...

See I thought I wrote yesterday then something went wrong and it didnt post so i just reposted but now I see it has to wait for your aprovel before it will post. So you really just need to aprove 1 of my comments. The one that you find most witty and entertaing will do.
It was a lovly blog and it lookes like you had a ton of fun. cole

Anonymous said...

That was a good trip. Can't wait until the next one.