City Girl Goes Camping

In April of this year, the hubby and I were fortunate to get away for a weekend and go camping.  This was the first time I had been camping since I was 14.  When I told my family that we were going camping, they looked at me with disbelief.  Their confusion and amusement was not without good reason.  On the last family camping trip, 16 years ago, I was miserable.  It was hot.  There were bugs.  Lots of bugs.  Bugs love me, but I didn't like them.**

**Although, I must point out that I've overcome my fear of bugs from not wanting to freak out in front of the kids, thus passing the fear along to them.  However, I do have my limits.  I don't do cockroaches and I don't do spiders that are more than 1/2" diameter.

Back to my story: No hot showers, only ice cold water complete with big spiders on the wall (we lived in Oklahoma at the time.  Spiders are to Oklahoma as cockroaches are to the deep South).  Not only was I miserable, but I was miserable to be around.  My family bases my camping abilities on that memorable trip.  They also got a laugh when I said I wanted to be 'camp certified' after I informed them that I am going to be Ella's Girl Scout troop leader next year.  I'm determined to prove my love of nature and the outdoors...as much as a city girl can (with my make-up bag and hair dryer in tow).

So anyway, I was a little apprehensive about staying in a tent at first, but I was willing to do anything to get away for a WHOLE WEEKEND with my hubby!  Thanks to my parents and my dear friend, Tisha (who already has 4 children, bless her heart!), we were able to make it happen.

Our destination of choice was the beautiful Texas Hill Country - Canyon of the Eagles in Burnet, TX on Lake Buchanan, to be exact.  We have stayed in Canyon of the Eagles twice before, but we stayed in the cabins.  This was our first time to stay on the campgrounds.  I have only one condition when it comes to camping: I will NOT go camping in the summer or at anytime when the temperature will rise above 82 degrees.  Luckily, we went on the first weekend of April so the weather was PERFECT!

Isn't our tent cool?!  We bought it at the REI garage sale.  Yep, we got in line at 5 o'clock in the morning for that sale, but I'm glad we did!  That baby only cost us $90 - quite a deal considering a they go for $329.

We also brought along our mountain bikes.  The hubs is really into mountain biking now.  I jumped on the bandwagon because I, too, want to ride a few trails every now and then.  Plus, I like having fun, active stuff to do with Court (that sentence leaves me totally open for all kinds of inappropriate jokes...).

I did help with the preparations a little: I gave my input on what we needed, what we should bring.  But all the credit goes to Court.  He made sure that we had everything we needed for our trip (I'm sure Google helped him with that).  Beer and Words With Friends on my iPhone kept us entertained in the evenings.

Perhaps the best part of our camping experience was getting out and exploring.  We drove along the road until we came to river and thought it would be fun to check it out.  We parked on the side of the rode and crept through the barbed wire onto someone's beautiful ranch land and hiked up and around the river.  I felt like a kid looking through all the rocks to find some nice one's to take home to the kids (my kids love rocks - plus, they make a really cheap souvenir!).

There's nothing quite as relaxing as cooking over a fire in the woods.  Ahh...I wish we were still there....

Another highlight was going to the observatory for a star party (no pics of that since it was pitch black and did not want the flashes of our camera to contribute to light pollution).  The astronomers there were great at showing us all sorts of cool things like Andromeda (our galaxy's nearest neighbor), Saturn, Mercury, constellations, etc.

This big-ass beetle was awesome!  He was so huge that we heard him trampling across the ground before we actually saw him.  See, I can appreciate bugs after all!

You won't catch me camping in the dead heat and humidity of summer, but come Fall I'll be ready for another trip!  As long as the air is cool and the bugs are minimum, I'm a happy camper :o)