Camping Trip

So.......

I just got back from my very first camping trip. And before I get to telling you all about the trip, I just wanted to touch on something.

As I have mentioned, this is my very first real camping trip. The closest I have come to camping before this was getting about an hour's worth of sleep the night before a large music festival. It was in the parking lot of the Texas Motor Speedway and it was in a tent, but it was an hour people. Now when I have told people in the past that I had never been camping, the response was always one of total shock. "What?!?! You have never been camping?!?!?" is the response I almost always got. Then, the person I was talking to would talk all about how great it was, and I had to do it once just to be able to say I had no interest in it. (I've never bungie jumped, strangled myself while masturbating, or killed another human being either, but I'm pretty sure I don't have to try them to make sure I have no interest in doing these things.....or do I?) So my trip this week was almost more about shutting these people up than actually getting out and enjoying nature. I've been now. And guess what? It was alright. Nothing to get too excited about mind you, but reasonably fun and I wouldn't be at all opposed to doing it again. The thing I find amusing is that people got so worked up about the fact that I had never been. As if it was some life-changing event that all people must go through. But really? It wasn't much different than being at home. Just more nature. And fuck nature. I love being outdoors, I just wish it didn't have so much nature. Trees, foliage of all kinds really, mountains, these are things I love. Also, building up a fire is pretty cool. But you can have bugs, snakes, and the persistent threat of wild animal attacks. I mean, I'm no dummy. Despite the wife's objections, when camping or doing any deep-woods hiking, I insist on being....prepared (Douglas knows of what I speak) to deal with these things. But I could avoid these things all together by looking at the trees in my apartment complex, walking to the end of my block and looking at the mountains, or building a tiny little fire in my fireplace:



The shoe is in there for scale. It's a size 11 1/2. When I say tiny fire, I mean tiny fire.

But with my griping aside, I still had a great time! Let me tell you about it:

We started out loading more than I can think any 2 people could use over the course of 24 hours into our car. We then drove for about forever to the tiny little campground at Belair Lake, northwest of Fort Collins, CO. There was only one other camper in the "No RV" section, so we were pretty content with the spot that we picked out. (When I say we, I mean the wife of course) We proceeded to pitch the tent (which until that moment, I had only done with a sheet, and usually first thing in the morning) which I insisted on doing myself with just questions being answered by the wife. Eventually, the wife grew tired of my not doing it just right, and jumped in to help, but I managed to get it done mostly solo.







Real roughing it calls for a king-size air mattress filling the floor of the tent.

Then we decided we would go for a quick hike where we saw many cool things. First, there was this mega-sweet view that we would re-visit later:





I'm very excited.

We found a lake:







Then, I decided I would try my hand at rock climbing:



I'm so Xtreme!

Sittin on a log.

Here I am traipsing through the "wilds":




She's getting pretty good at taking those pictures of the 2 of us. Even if it does usually take her about 10 tries.

Then it was decided that it was time to gather firewood for our evening cookout and morning coffee. As the entire area had recently been ravaged by pine beetles, there was plenty of wood to go around (even though we did have to chop some of it off of fallen trees) and very soon we had a very nice collection of combustion fuel. This is when I got to truly shine, for I am the Master of Fire!







Gettin it ready!







After the fire was set up, I figured I'd teach the wife how to play Backgammon. Fucking beginner's luck!



Dinner Time!

Being my first outing into the world of camping, we decided to go pretty simple with the food. All we did, were some Hebrew National Hot dogs, and some foil packed diced potatoes, garlic, and butter. Yummy!





Now, you may have noticed that I threw the ol' Under-Armour on. The temperature was steadily dropping and by the time the sun went down things were getting pretty chilly.

Here's the aforementioned view revisited:





As you can imagine, as the temperature was dropping, my masterfully built fire was more and more important:







The we were off to bed! I wiggled into my brand-new sleeping bag to pose for some photos for the wife:





We were going to get in some quality tent-snuggles, but the cold just kept making us laugh:



So this is what our tent snuggles looked like:



Then in the morning it was time to make a new fire so that we could have coffee. But it was cold!

Does this Balaclava make me look fat?

Finally! Coffee!



After breaking down the camp it was time to get in the car and go home:

Don't I look happy?