"The Joys of Camping" or "I'm Totally Insane."

So, I went camping this weekend. I love camping. I love getting away, being surrounded by nature, going on hikes, sitting around a campfire, eating things cooked over a fire, and all that sort of stuff. Earlier this summer my gf and I found a really great camping spot. It's a "walk-in" type site, where they have a cart for you to haul all your stuff a quarter mile to a fairly secluded site.

So, we decided to go again. This time, we brought the dogs. Three of them between the two of us. Carting the stuff in was easy, no big deal, it's pretty much all down hill. We unpacked the car and got the dogs all settled in a fairly quick amount of time. Friday night was great, we had a good dinner and sat around the camp fire for a while and then it was off to bed.

The tent is large, and we had a big puffy air mattress to sleep on. A couple of sleeping bags, plus a sheet and a blanket. It would have been perfect except for the fact that one of the dogs is 55 lbs. No big deal you say? He should be sleeping on the ground right? I mean, I did bring his puffy doggy bed, plus a flannel sheet and two blankets for him. He should be warm enough right? Um, let's see...NO. So, there are two humans, two little dogs and one big dog on the air mattress that sunk down in the middle because, that's what happens with air mattresses. I was stuck in the same position, with one foot hanging out of the covers (did I mention it was about 40 degrees that night?) because the big dog decided that sleeping curled up with me was the only place good enough for him to sleep. *sigh*

Saturday was fantastic. It started out a bit chilly, but a roaring fire and a hot breakfast took care of the chill and it warmed up to a bright sunshiny day. We went on walks, read books, played games again had a fabulous dinner and a roaring fire that night. Thankfully, Saturday night it didn't get quite as cold. Sadly, the rain that wasn't supposed to come until Sunday afternoon, showed up really early Sunday morning (like 3am)

Rain. Dogs. Tent. Mud. Wet. Yuck! Thankfully, there were a couple of breaks in the rain when we could let the dogs out of the tent to feed them and let them go potty. The rain finally stopped about 10:30 and we were able to start packing up our wet stuff. We had to make two trips with stuff and leave the dogs in the tent, as it was far to muddy to let them out. We carried the little ones part of the way out, so as to keep them from getting too muddy. After putting them in the car, we then had to go and pack up the tent and bring it and the trash back out. When you add it all up, that's 2 miles of walking loaded down with things we did, just to cart out!

I think that may just qualify me as officially insane. But really, when I think about it, the perfect day that was Saturday pretty much makes up for all the rest of it.

I'll try and post a couple of pictures later tonight.