"It'll be fun!" they said.
Yeah. Right.
Up until this past weekend, my limited camping experience had consisted of several very muggy yet frigid nights in a place that qualified as "nature." What qualifies as "nature?" A spot of undeveloped land, overly inhabited by bugs of the biting sort often accompanied by a large, ripe hole in the ground, generously referred to by many as a latrine.
I may be exaggerating a little. These nature experiences often were tolerated in the company of good friends or family with as many gooey smores as one could possibly stomach....so I guess it wasn't that bad. But, I just could never understand why, out of everything our modern world has to offer, would anyone choose to go camping over going pretty much anywhere else? Anywhere else with a real bathroom, running water, cushy beds, solid four walls, temperature controls, electricity...need I go on? It was one giant mystery to me.
And that was okay. Not all mysteries need to be solved....until I got married and I found out the perfect boy I married was only nearly perfect. He was one of them. A camper.
And, apparently he's not the only new camper in my life. My new ward (congregation at church) is full of 'em as well. They all joined forces, organized our annual ward campout, and away I went this weekend to another place of "nature" that I had yet to explore--- Silver Falls State Park.
And now forget EVERYTHING I wrote before. I am a chaaangged woman! We camped for two nights (instead of my usual one nighter) and it made all the difference! That extra day in-between roughing it in a tent, is the WHY PEOPLE GO CAMPING part. What a relaxing experience. No cell phone service, lots of reading, chatting, and the most scrumptious food (the men in our ward are dutch oven champs). I think I could actually get used to this whole camping thing :)
Our assignment was to bring the orange juice, and the orange juice we did bring.
We brought "fancy hotdogs" (several steps up from our usual dogs) which our experienced camper friends insisted we correctly call "brats" (as in "bratwurst" not brat in "bratty kids")
One of the many magical dutch oven experiences of the weekend
Kendall as he conquered our hiking trail
This picture was only to point out that the silver thing in the bottom right corner was a real SINK. The guy in the orange brought a true blue kitchen sink! Mind blown.
One of the many falls at Silver Falls...this pic doesn't do it justice
Me- the hiker
Kendall in a food coma
