Welll.... Wasn't That Exciting?

So.

I survived it. I have officially gone camping. I did not have to call my mom at 9:30 and tell her that the guys at the next campsite over were going to tell ghost stories and scare us and could she please come pick me up (please?). Good, since it's a 10 hour drive to get to the most bitchin' campsite evah. The Ultimate Ride Campground was near enough to DuPont State Forest to be convenient, far enough into the woods to be quiet, and it was a really nicely set-up place. (With a GREAT bathhouse. Showers! A flush toilet! Cement floors! Cedar walls! It wasn't buggy, disgusting, or anything of the sort, plus? Our campsite, practically on top of the damn thing, and it was heaven.) I loved the time I got to spend at the site sitting around reading my books and knitting. The tent was good, the weather was great, and the air mattresses held up wonderfully (even through some roughhousing).

The hiking didn't even kill me- though P was kind and gentle for the most part. (He kept to easy/moderate trails, and only went to strenuous/suicidal a couple of times, because he knows I'm a wuss.) All told, it was an excellent trip, and I can't wait till we go back again next year. Once the film gets developed I'll scan a few pictures and post- the waterfalls were truly amazing.

We only had one minor incident while we were away. And this requires a bit of backstory. P and I love to cook. A lot. We found a great campstove setup- really inexpensive, had tons of workspace, storage room, and places to hang stuff. GREAT. Wonderful. Folded up into a tiny thing and everything. Amazing, it was. The hard thing was finding a nice cookset- plates, bowls, knives, pots... you know- that stuff- that didn't either go too basic (everything folded into one piece) or too extreme- 21 pots, 85 different corn holders, corkscrews, wick trimmers, etc... we drove up to Cabela's one pouring down rainy Sunday afternoon to find one- only to find the ONLY model in the store fell into the "perfect, but way, way overpriced" category. So, P goes online, finds a great set for a good price, and with a few days to go, it arrives. We oooh and aah over the set, and tuck it safely under his coffee table so it's out of the way.

Which is exactly where it stayed during the entire trip.

Yep. We drove the whole way down there, and didn't take the blasted cookware, dishes, knives or silverware. Mercifully, there was a wal-mart about 20 minutes away in Hendersonville, and we got a pot, a pan, and a pack of washable picnic plates and picnic silverware, a cheap knife (I at least had remembered my cutting board) and a spatula and spoon. Heh. It did the trick I must say...

Also, I discovered that if you forget to pack salt and pepper, and forget to steal any from Wendy's on your way down, you can use granulated chicken bullion (which you did remember to pack) as a halfway decent salt substitute. :) (And it, along with dried mustard and some mrs. dash and mayo makes a damn good dressing for chicken salad sandwiches. Just saying.)

So... more to come.