This past weekend, +Cindy Williams and I decided to go camping. There had been hits about our plans for a long time (including asking you good plussers what to bring) but this was time … time to take to the woods, rough it, play with fire and live in the elements… Yup, back to the basics.
We started by packing over a period of a few days, getting everything ready. Cocked, locked and ready to rock! I spent most of the day getting everything except our raincoats packed. I packed my Toyota Matrix to the brim! There was no more room. I mean, maybe we could have squeezed an iPad in there, but that was about it!
Cindy got off work and we quickly jumped in the car. ADHD boy then realized he forgot his phone… so he ran back in and grabbed that! Off we went. Earlier traffic reports led us to believe we would arrive about next Tuesday. Thankfully, we generally cruised through the traffic and got there in time to have SOME light setting up camp. I swung the car around and we used our headlights to get things up and ready. About 30 minutes later Cindy said "Is it normal for your headlights to get dim like that?" Um…. no. Crap – well, it's a standard… I can pop the clutch, worry about it tomorrow….
Once we got set up, Cindy made us some of the every popular Tri-Burgers. OMG…. this is roughing it! Gourmet burgers off a hot flame! I got it ROUGH! Unbelievably good! We finished off the evening with SMORES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cindy was convinced we would wake up at the butt crack of dawn. I wasn't so sure… but who knows, I get up at 7 almost every day of my life, whats a little butt crack when roughing it? As we "rolled out of bed" I looked at the clock… 9:50. NICE!
I decided I would make breakfast on my camping stove and promptly burned about 1/2 the bacon and some eggs. Frustrated … I got grumpy but was quickly told to chill out and we ended up having a GREAT breakfast after a little re-work. Thanks, babe!
Now, Cindy is supposed to be not using her foot too much (at all) so hiking was out. Well, that was in theory… you can't keep that woman down. We did a hike to the Overlook. It was strenuous, but Cindy took lots of breaks and promised me she would stay off it later. She did… the view was worth every drop of sweat.
After that, we went on a fun run to Walmart and to the Apple store. I say fun, not because a rural America Walmart provides such a fabulous people watching opportunity… more because the roads in the North Georgia mountains provide me with such a playground. Someday I will get there on 2 wheels, or maybe +Sam Rainey will get me better equipped… but for now, I enjoy pushing my little Toyota to the limits. It was a fun ride, we got ice cream too! Man, we are roughing it!
That evening was a tough one … well, for our potatoes. We tried to make the kind of potatoes you cook by putting them in coals. Yeah, great. Just don't use Dollar Store foil… UGH! We got some white matter out of the middle of them, it was tasty … but we burned them up pretty good! That's okay… we were probably the only camp site eating fresh green beans and STEAK! That's right, my woman takes GOOD care of me, even in the woods! Great dinner followed by SMORES….
Sunday was to be a little more low key, which is exactly what we needed and wanted. We had another gourmet teamwork style breakfast and it was AWESOME! We have decided not to worry about lunch …. 2 meals a day is good for our camping adventures (as long as we have SMORES after dinner!
We got ready and headed out on and adventure. We went into town and grabbed some ice and a few more random items. We decided to go site seeing. I found a dirt road… yes, not only is my Matrix a corner carver, it's an off-road beast! I don't know how many miles into the woods we drove, but we did hear banjo music. Up … up… up… we went into the woods on a 1 lane dirt road. Around the last curve … TREE DOWN! Yup…. that's as far as we went! I gingerly turned the car around and we headed back down. On the way down – I looked up and saw something moving…. I yelled BEAR… BEAR… BEAR!!!!!! A big ole black bear was lumbering up a hill out of sight! That's right, I saw him! Cindy was sad she didn't… I tried to find him, but not too hard. That could have been cumbersome.
We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring We really enjoyed driving down Old CCC Camp Road … basically doing a full lap around Fort Mountain State Park. Aside from one scantily clad person on top of a rock, it was very nice.
Rule: Just because a bikini comes in that size does not mean you HAVE to wear it!
We got back to camp and did what every couple roughing it does… enjoyed a great spaghetti dinner with PROPERLY cooked potatoes! (it became a challenge, a goal, a reason to live… and who doesn't have baked potatoes with their spaghetti?) We played trivial pursuit, and for the first time in our lives, used and ENTIRE Yahtzee sheet! The camp fire was hot, we had fun and you can probably guess…. ate SMORES!!!!!!!!!
Monday morning rolled around and the skies unleashed furious anger on us. Holy running water! Packing up in the rain wasn't so much fun… but we got it done and had some fun. It rained about 3-4 other times during the weekend, we got absolutely poured on a few times but you know… that didn't put a damper on our fun or time together. It really was a great weekend.
I'm sure I left a lot of stuff out like the heard of children that moved in for about 23 hours, details about he pouring rain, humidity and other things that COULD have put a damper on our weekend – but we simply didn't let them. Can't wait to do this again!
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