1st camping trip as a married couple!

Last weekend Josh and I went camping together for the first time since we have been married. It was a learning experience! We planned to go for two nights - leave Friday after work and return Sunday before evening church. I happened to have that Friday off so I spent the day preparing for the trip. I made lists, gathered the gear, food, etc, packed the car, and as soon as Josh was home from work we were off! We basically headed to the closest place to us that has trees, and since the campgrounds were all closed we planned on just pulling off a deserted road somewhere and dry camping. We had hoped we'd arrive in time to set-up before dark...but that didn't work out so well.

We set up in the dark on the side of the mountain. Everything was sloped but it was the only place someone else hadn't already set up camp. Fortunately we were far away from other people so at least going to the bathroom wasn't an issue! We fought to start a fire for about 30 minutes and finally got it going. By the time we got it going we were pretty much ready for bed so we let it burn out. It had to have been the longest night of my life. Since the entire area was sloped, so was our tent. We were slipping down all night long, but I'm just glad it wasn't to the side. We didn't really have any padding (Therm-o-rests are way up there are our "to  buy" list.) so we were very sore in the morning. There were a number of complications in the morning in relation to getting the stove working, forgetting the pancake mix, and so on. But suffice it to say that by about 1 in the afternoon we both agreed we'd had our experience and wanted to be home.

Trying to build a wind barrier. The wind was blowing directly up the mountain the entire time and it was exhausting to fight it.

My kitchen area wind barrier! There's no way that fire would have stayed lit without this.

At this little bookstore in the upstairs room of a building in Cloudcroft.

So we packed up camp and headed home! Josh was so sweet and did almost all the unpacking and even returned the things we borrowed while I took a bath. That night we decided to camp out in the living room and have a Friends night! It was fun, and more comfortable than the night on the side of the mountain. We roasted hog dogs over the grill and enjoyed not freezing. =)

Bug spray, hah. We didn't have to use it camping but we have to use it at home...

Dogs and brats.