Camping

This is a post a long time in coming (sorry for the long delay)

Over Memorial Day weekend Matt and I went camping with Steve and Sue. It was a wonderful time and here is just a little overview of the trip.
Thursday Matt came home and we finished packing, jumped in the car to drive 2 hours south to camp at Doughton Park in NC on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We arrived there at about 9 pm, got a camping site and set up as little as we could (mainly just the tent) and we headed to bed. The main reason that we did not want to set up a lot was 1. we were tired... 2. Steve and Sue would be arriving the next day and we were going to check out other campsites to see if any worked better for both groups.
Friday morning after a wonderful breakfast of oatmeal and a walk around the camp grounds we decided to take a nap. I woke up from my nap just in time to see Steve and Sue's car drive into the camp area. That crazy couple woke at midnight to get on the road and arrive at the campsite at 11:00 am.We were still tired from our nap, but Steve and Sue were ready to work. So we found a campsite just across the road that was better for both tents, then the building of the tarp city began. A very large tarp was erected because it was supposed to rain that weekend and under the tarp we could cook, eat, read, play games, and just in general be more comfortable. (note almost all of the pictures have green at the top...that would be our lovely tarp!)

But I learned one major thing. Camping is not about sleeping outside, or setting up the tent, or anything like that....NO it is about the COOKING! Friday night we had steak, baked potatoes, and a made from scratch cherry pie! Yes, I am proud of that cherry pie, I had never made a pie crust in the wilderness before.

Saturday we went to Brenniger's Cabin. It is a cabin that was kept pretty authentic from a couple that lived on the mountain as it was being turned into the Parkway. It was a 2 room cabin with spinning wheel, no electricity, spring house, etc. It was amazing to think about how they could live in such a small place with so little with such a large family (I think they had 5 kids!)
Then we came back to our tents to bake some cookies. Yes, you heard me right...BAKE cookies. Matt and his dad took a cardboard box and transformed it into an oven. Then Matt made his famous chocolate chip cookies and we baked them right there in the middle of a field. You could see other campers looking around and sniffing the air trying to figure out where the smell was coming from. We shared as much as people would take.

Saturday night we went to presentation on the Dulcimer done by one of the park rangers. It was very informative and also great music. Fun time all around.
Sunday Matt and I went on a hike back to Brenninger's Cabin, and just wandered around. It was nice to get a little bit of a hike in. Then we came back and played many games and read more of our books. Dinner was chicken and vegetable packets (hobos as we call them) and S'mores YUMMY!

But the time has to end at some time, so Monday morning we woke and had cherry turnovers (very similar to the cherry pie from Friday night) also baked in our oven. And spent the rest of the morning packing up. By 11:00 am we were packed and saying our good-byes. It is a sad thought to think about but I am not sure when we will see Steve and Sue again, I am so glad that they made the long drive out to come camping with us.Oh, yes...I forgot to add that it rained every day, and there were no showers at the campsite. So we were all wet, tired, and smelly by the end...but my goodness we had fun!