Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Sir Campsalot

I have been wanting to go camping for a while (I’ve been craving a solid dose of nature lately) so last Friday, my birthday, I convinced Bradford to come with me and away we went.
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Bradford called his dad to get an idea for a good, not-too-far-away, cheap (ie-free), campsite. After their conversation, we settled on West Desert.

The drive was lovely and after exploring a few options we finally settled in to our CIMG2832chosen campsite. We were really glad that it was so remote. Even with all the motorists enjoying the hills, our site was quiet and undisturbed.

We brought hotdogs to roast over the fire for dinner, chips and salsa, makings for s’mores, popcorn, and bagels for breakfast (though we ended up eating s’mores and hotdogs again in the morning, too. Yum!). 

We talked, played some cards, ate a bunch of food, and enjoyed being outside. It was a lot of relaxing fun. I don’t think Bradford will want to play Go Fish or Slap Jack with me any time too soon though, I beat him just about every game. I’m just too good at games that depend on random luck, apparently.

One of the many things I like about Bradford is that he too likes to camp. He also enjoys minimalist camping. Especially just for overnight camping jaunts, I hate packing a ton of stuff and hauling a bunch of things we may/may not use. I love that he likes to keep it simple. We sat on rocks, used the cardboard box that carried our firewood as a table, and roasted our hotdogs and marshmallows on sticks we found in the wild (which proved to be a bit of a challenge- not too many real trees out there in the desert).

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We initially planned to just sleep outside in the wide open, me in my sleeping bag and him in/on a bunch of blankets (though his sleeping arrangements were more lack of planning than pure minimalism). Our campsite, however, had a lot of “burrow” looking holes around it and I was soon convinced that I would wake up with a snake snuggled next to my face. Luckily for my face, I have a tent that I always keep in my car (thanks to very limited closet space in my apartment, my car has become an extra storage facility), so we set it up and slept in that instead. Good thing, too. We heard more than one critter scuttling around during the night. We even tried to catch a glimpse of a few by shining our flashlight through the mesh tent window which, in actuality, probably just scared them off.

I love camping and hope to do a lot more of it this summer.

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4 comments:

Bradford said...

That was a lot of fun. You can always count on me to go with you.

Anonymous said...

That sounds like a lot of fun! Curtis and I were thinking we'd like to go sometime; however, our only option would be in the next few weeks (just before my due date) after my mom and sister arrive to watch Isaac. Otherwise, we'd either have to bring him with or forgo the trip entirely. Either way, we'd like to eventually camp a bit before the summer ends. Hopefully we can work something out soon!

Julie said...

I hope you can, too, Court! It is always so much fun.

Jess said...

Looks like lots of fun! I went camping Memorial weekend and it was nice to be back in nature for a while. :)