Camping

You either love it or hate it! We love to camp. I had never camped before we were married.

The first time J and I camped together (he has been camping his whole life), we had been to a wedding in Camden, TN and were going to stay the night somewhere around Natchez Trace and meet his parents the next morning to go on the boat all day. Jonathan suggested purchasing a small tent and some food as opposed to paying for a hotel room….I thought he was kidding, but to my surprise he was 100% serious. I literally had NOTHING but dress clothes (from the rehearsal dinner and the bridesmaid’s dress I was wearing) and my bathing suit and cover up. We stopped by Wal-mart and purchased a small tent, cooler, and hotdogs to cook for dinner. That was labor day 2008. Then began my love of camping…

This weekend was somewhat of a spur of the moment decision. I asked Wednesday afternoon if I could take off Friday. We went to breakfast with my grandmother on Friday morning and then headed out around lunch time. We got to Natchez and set up camp around 2pm. I had tickets to the JCS Consignment Sale in Jackson for that afternoon at 5, so we quickly set up and went back into town for the sale. I got a few maternity sweaters and pants, and a few things for little man, and then we got a few necessities we forgot at Wal-mart and headed back to camp.

Once we got set up J wanted to make sure his climing stand was ready for the morning.  He was just chillin up there enjoying the weather!

When we got back to the campsite we were told by the people who run the camping area that there is a ban on fires right now in Tennessee, so we couldn’t use an open fire to cook with…well FYI…that’s how we ALWAYS cook – we do have a small propane double burner, but it’s not going to cook things like kabobs and hotdogs – we didn’t have anything else for this. We asked them what we were supposed to do and he just said…well I’m just here to tell you what we are told…what you do is up to you, so can you guess? We had a fire! We had chili dogs on Friday night and some roasted marsh mellows…YUM! My favorite camping meal of all times (well technically just my favorite meal).

 

We had fun just relaxing by the fire with nothing specific to do. J got up early (5am) Saturday morning and went hunting with Tyson, because he lives within 15 minutes of where we are staying and they don’t get to see each other as much now that they are not in school together. They both came back and we had a spread for breakfast…pancakes, hash browns, eggs, bacon, and sausage. Tyson left shortly after breakfast and we decided to take a leisurely nature walk…that turned into somewhat of a nightmare.

I wanted to find some pretty acorns and festive fall décor that I could use at home. We starting walking around 11:30 or so and found a trail that would lead us “around the lake” and back to the campsite – it was about a 4 mile hike, so we thought it would be fun and maybe take a little over an hour. I got some pretty photos before we got too far into the hike.

Needless to say, the trail was not just 4 miles – it was more like 8-10 miles of hills, very little sight of the lake, and a ton of fallen trees and thorns to try and avoid. We finally got out to an actual gravel road around 3:45 and started walking for at least a mile when a truck came down the road…I begged J to ask if they could take us to the end of the road – and the obliged…I think they noticed I was pregnant and even offered to drop us off at the camp site – THANK YOU JESUS!! I was so thankful. I had been praying the whole time we were on the gravel road that someone would drive by and offer to take us back…I was definitely at the breaking point – I was ready to just start crying and say I was done! J offered to let me hide in the woods and he would come back and pick me up – you see I’m not usually such a weenie, but that day my hip had started hurting, and about 1 mile into the walk, both were bothering me. We were so tired, dehydrated, hungry, and in so much pain! We finally got back to the campsite around 4:30 and made lunch, and crashed!

We napped for about two and a half hours and then went to get showers and started making dinner. We had chicken kabobs, green beans, corn, and toast…it was so good. As you can probably tell, my favorite part about camping is the food…I love eating over an open fire. Sunday morning we woke up and took our time going about breakfast and breaking down. We actually ran out of propane, so I had to cook all of breakfast over the fire that morning. We had omelets and hash browns. We finally got packed up and left Natchez around 11:00 or so. It’s so fun just to have a relaxing weekend with nothing to worry about, and really get to spend quality time together – with no television, house cleaning, or other distractions – it was our last time to go camping any time soon just the two of us!
Hope you had a fun and relaxing weekend as well!

I just love all the many parts of the fall season!  It's so cool to see all the leaves changing...how amazing that God made that as just part of the season...so miraculous!