I Camped.

Yup folks, you read it right. I went camping. And to your surprise, I even planned it. I had a Saturday off (the 25th) so we took off Friday afternoon and headed east to Bill Hill Pond State Park.

Our Camp

We set up camp with (relatively) little trouble. We got our our new tent, found the perfect place to set it up (easier said then done apparently) and got it up in about 10-15 mins. It's designed to go up in about 60 seconds. I guess we need to practice. We built our fire and sat down at the picnic table to have a game of Skipbo before roasting hot dogs when it started to POUR! We threw the cards in the Ziploc bag I packed them in (have I mentioned I love Ziploc?) and tossed the wood and newspaper we had for our fire under the picnic table and dashed to the car. Why didn't we run to the tent, you ask? I don't know. We sat in the car for about 15 mins until the rain stopped.

Scott chopping some wood....

The rest of the evening was uneventful (unless you  count the DESPISED trips to the spider-infested bathrooms an event). We sat around the fire, roasted hot dogs and made s'mores with peanut butter cups

and just sat. We headed to bed and I realized I forgot pillows. I won't make that mistake again!!

We slept well in the new tent even though it rained all night long. We were dry and warm, but not all that comfortable in our pillowless sleep.

Saturday morning we woke up early (it's hard to sleep in w/out a pillow) and Scott made us eggs. He insisted on packing the camp stove for our 2-night trip. He was eager to try it out, so whatever! We had our yummy eggs and then headed out to our hike. It was just a couple miles down the road in the park. We hiked 2.5 miles to a refurbished fire watch tower. Once at the tower you climbed up about 70 feet and you looked out over the Tuscumbian valley. (I think that's what it's called...) We chilled up there for a few minutes and headed back. The whole thing took only a couple hours at a leisurely pace, so we had ALL DAY to figure out what to do!

Come dinner we ate our remaining hot dogs and s'mores and went to bed. Sunday morning we got up, packed up and headed back home.

It was fun. Next time we'll plan our food better, remember pillows, bring friends and scout out more day-time activities. The only thing I truly hate about camping is going to the bathroom. Those park bathrooms are SO GROSS, but with camp neighbors you have no choice. Unless you want the camp neighbors to watch you in the woods. Which I don't.

I hate uploading pictures here, so I'm just going to post them in a huge long list.

On the hike.

At the top of the tower

Looking a little sleep deprived?!

Camping makes people look soooo attractive....

The fire tower. The stairs were so steep!

Scott roasted hot dogs after the hike.

Killing time Saturday afternoon. Thank you Jay and Courtney for letting us borrow your cooler, sleeping bags and pads!!

 We plan to go again...not sure when though. Scott thinks we're going to start backpacking. I told him I won't fit in his bag.