The first campout

Last weekend was the first campout of the summer! One beautiful thing about living right by the mountains is that decent campgrounds can be reached by driving for less than half an hour. Very good. The participants in this campout were me, Katherine, Kent, Curtis, and Angi. Angi and I felt kind of left out because our names don't start with a "k" sound.

It rained all week but the forecast claimed that it would be dry Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon. We decided to believe this and headed up the canyon. Katherine packed plenty of food and Curtis did his best to eat as much as possible. He also brought a large knife and we tried to think of good uses for it. At one point we saw a deer and we thought he could catch it and gut it for our dinner. In the end, we settled for hot dogs.

It was an enjoyable evening. I kept waking up during the night and giggling to myself over the memory of the witty conversation that we'd had around the campfire.

However, early Saturday morning we discovered that the weather forecast was WRONG! (I guess I souldn't really be surprised). There was the sound of merry, unrelenting rain upon the tent. Fortunately, both the girls' tent and Kent's tarp did their job well and kept us all dry. Katherine and I went on an early morning walk and almost lost our shoes in the mud. Yum.

We heated up water for cooking eggs and having hot chocolate.


Kent drowned his sorrows in the bottom of a bottle of cherry soda.


I'm not sure what his sorrows were, but he sure did finish off that soda. Then Katherine got a little exuberant with the hot chocolate powder and the result was more chocolate than hot.

Sadly, I do not own water-repellent glasses. And my rain poncho was at home, doing me a lot of good.
We were at the top of the foothills, right by the mountains, and it looked like the rainclouds were going to come right down and eat us. We canceled out planned morning hike and got back to our hot showers early.



Angi wisely stayed in the tent in her sleeping bag until the last possible minute and made a dash for the car. The next camping trip will be longer and drier. I hope.