Camping is so awesome

We had a fabulous time. Usually after a couple of days away, I'm ready to come home. Not so, whilst camping. I'm sure I could have stayed a week.

We got off to a bit of a bumpy start, because the weather was too cold for Bean. Despite blankets and flannel sheets and an electric blanket, she was shivering. And Diesel is very skittish of unfamiliar noises, so we took both dogs home after one night, around 11am Saturday. We left them in the house with the door to the garage open, so they would have access to their doggie door.

I'm glad we decided to camp near by, because it gave us the option of bringing the dogs back. Had we gone further, we would have had to stick it out. Next time we will go somewhere warmer or will bring a coat and maybe booties (baby socks) for her. :) She's eight years old and Jase thinks the cold might make her bones ache.

We took a few pics upon arrival, although it was dark. Diesel immediately took to one of the "loft areas". I called it his "fort".

Jason quickly built a fire for us, and I discovered there's not much he likes more than making a camp fire. The man was loving it. And I was loving the warmth. The first night was very cold, dipping down into the lower 30s.

While he was making the fire, I started making dinner. Because I brought leftover Taco Soup, all I had to do was heat it up. I was glad to have something easy to make, since I was tired.

I learned that I needed to heat the soup to a really hot temperature, because the cool air cooled it very quickly. We ate, then hung out by the fire for a while. Then we hooked up the laptop to watch movies in bed. We watched Superbad, and I fell asleep about halfway through, as always. In the morning, we ate oatmeal and drank coffee and tea, then took the dogs home. Can you hear Bean in the following photo? She's saying, 'Seriously, can we go home now? This sucks.'

So we took them home. Then we went back to camp and made hamburgers for lunch.

I love the swing-out feature of the stove. It's nice to be able to cook outdoors. Kind of takes the drudgery out of it, not that it's drudgerous, but if there was any drudgery involved, the outdoors takes it away.

Then we figured out how to correctly install the slide-out beds. We had been doing it all wrong before, at the house. The proper installation created the best reading nook ever.

After about one day, I was finally able to relax. Relaxing is very hard for me. It's something I'm sure I will be good at by the time I'm 80 or so.

Jason relaxed too. He even got a little goofy.

This morning, I broke out the tripod to take some final photos. I have a very unsteady hand, so the tripod helps me immensely. I used the timer feature on the camera to take one of my favorite pictures of us ever captured.

I think it would make a great holiday card, maybe sent out for Thanksgiving rather than Christmas. And I'm going to put it on my desk at work, to help remind me of good times.

I'm ready to go camping again, this next weekend. I have already checked the weather and it looks good. There's a place close to us, McDowell Nature Preserve, and I'm going to check availability of camping spots tomorrow. I would love to take the camper down there Friday while Jase is at work, set it up, and get it ready for him to come "home" after work. I'm probably going to try to bribe him with a steak dinner. But, I may not need that steak because I think he likes camping as much as I do. Fantastic!