Camping

Last weekend, we packed our gear, our Josh, and two coolers into our new wagon and headed up towards Julian to go camping.

A bit of history: I tried to coordinate a previous camping trip in..09? I even reserved campsite(s!). But things happened, and no one could go, and I ended up eating the money.

This time, I waited to make sure people were able to go BEFORE reserving the campsite (wise, eh?). Which led us to only having one site available that weekend. Max occupancy: 8. People coming: 11. Woops. It ended up being no problem, anyways. The site across the street probably had more like 20.

Uh, right. So, I left work at 2, in Mike’s car, to go get gas and get home to finish packing and load the car. Josh was going to get me some ice and meet me at the house at 3. I pulled into the Costco gas station at 2:30, and hot damn, there were a lot of people getting gas. It took me a while, and Josh had to wait for me to get home. Alas. We actually managed to get out the door by 3:30, with only one return trip for pillows. We got up to the site a little after 4:30, tented up, inflated mattresses, set out chairs…

Aaaand were cold. The other two cars had the food and the firewood. We subsisted on peanut butter pretzels and beer/soda until they arrived. Matt & Molly & Jonah & Andy showed up next. Mike did an excellent job of watching Jonah while I helped Molly assemble their tent in almost dark (we did already have the lanterns out). Matt & Ash & Savy & Lindsay rolled in a half hour after that. People started fire and food while I helped Matt assemble their tent.

(I am a tent master. I joked I was going to go around and offer my tent assembly for a price.)
(Both kids had their own tiny tents inside the parents’ tents, which was super adorable.)

We had hot dogs and baked beans for dinner and SMORES for dessert. Which are infinitely better with dark chocolate, thanks to Molly’s wiseness.

Yeah, it’s a horrible picture, but I only had my phone.

We knew it was going to be cold that night, but I don’t think any of us were REALLY prepared for how FREEEEEZING it turned out to be. We were all huddled around that fire, shivering. When we did finally climb into the sleeping bags, I had on socks, long johns, yoga pants, tshirt, sweatshirt, gloves, hat, hood. Inside the bag.

Oh, and then my bladder rebelled about sleeping in an unfamiliar place and I had to get up and go to the bathroom twice in the middle of the night, alone, in the cold, across the campsite. (I did not know about the mountain lion population until the next day.)

In the morning, we got up and made fried eggs and bacon and toasted english muffins over the fire. Yum. Our main plan that day was to go apple picking at an orchard that Matt & Molly knew about. Josh volunteered to stay behind and read, and the rest of us smushed into two of the cars and headed out. The apple picking started off slowly, but picked up steam as we finally found apples that were not rotten, trampled, or picked over by the TOUR BUS of people.

Post-apple pickin!

After that, we split the convoy up. The car I was in headed to the Julian hard cider place, and the other car headed to get piiiiee.

We rendez-vous’ed at camp, and then had pb&j. Matt (M) and I left again to go get more firewood for the night/next day as Matt (P), Molly, Andy, & Jonah packed up to head back down the hill. We were sad to see them go 😦

Two cords bundles of wood and 4 D batteries (for my electric lantern) later, we returned to discover that they HAD EATEN THE PIE IN OUR ABSENCE. HORROR.

Then, Matt, Lindsay, Mike, and I went on a little loop hike. Well, Mike kept getting calls from work, so he turned around after a couple minutes, and we headed on. Unbeknownst to us, he came back and was chasing us most of the way. And then he fell and dropped his regular glasses, which he didn’t realize (he was wearing sunglasses) and had to go BACK afterwards and thankfully found them. (Oh, yes, and it was at this time that I saw that “WARNING! Mountain Lion!” sign.)

For dinner that night, we made fajitas, which were delish. And then there were more smores. After several rounds of “Glow Baby Songs” with Savy, she went to bed, and we played some games around the campfire. We had fun, and the fire was hot. And it was not nearly as cold!

I slept pretty well the second night, but did have to go to the bathroom once. But I made Mike go with me.

Funny thing, there were HORDES of boyscouts that showed up on Saturday. HOOOORDES. All the guys had to wait in line to use the bathroom, and we moseyed in to the women’s, no problem.

In the morning, we made breakfast burritos and ate, while watching in amazement as the camp next to us broke everything down and were DONE AND GONE by 8a. After breakfast, we started disassembling and packing up, and we headed out around 10a. I was a little disappointed, because I wanted to try this pizza place called “The Red Barn” that I saw in Wynola, but alas. Next time.

We got home a little after 11, and man, was that shower good. Ahhhh.