Adventures in Camping 2008

This year's version of camping out took us back to Warwick Conservation Area; again with the thinking that if things didn't work out, we weren't far from home. This time, we brought reinforcements – Shauna and John were with us, another set of adults for wrangling the kids.

Things started off smoothly (if you ignore me forgetting to pack the side screens and roof of the dining tent and Shelley having to drive back for them). We got set up and began to enjoy the camping life:


Until the bugs started biting. Still we made do with multiple applications of DEET and mosquito coils. Mind you, we aren't the most rugged of campers. Our sojourn into the wilds included sundary electronic items, and this is our idea of "roughing it" - DVDs on the laptop:


Friday night's campfire fizzled because of too-wet firewood, but we did manage some S'mores. I slipped away mid-Saturday to assist with a wedding and returned through some wild rainstorms. The rains found us and before the night got too late, the decision was made to return to our dry homes for sleep and after allaying Reiko's fears that someone might arrive in our absence and pack up our stuff and set up their own camp on our site, we headed home. (Actually, it would be nice if someone arrived to pack up our stuff for us!)

Sunday morning was wet and drizzly, so our pack-up was a hurried stuff-everything-into-a-plastic-bag-and-cram-it-into-the-car-and-go operation. The afternoon was bright and sunny so we unpacked everything, dried it out and cleaned it and repacked it. After all that work, I'm ready for a vacation; but we did have enough fun to try and do it all again sometime. But not too soon, we just got everything put away.