Camping 2018 Attempt 1 & Riding

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

This was not a well planned camping trip. The idea came to me the previous weekend late at night after I read about Mars being so close. I researched the astronomy dark sky maps and booked us a camp site at Fall Creek Falls, the closest campsite in a dark zone.

Then I remembered to check the weather. Rain. All weekend.

We decided to go anyway, we enjoy an adventure, even if it's a mess.

We arrived at the campsite on time and it was pouring rain and thundering, but looked like it would blow over. I went in to check us in and the people in front of me had arrived to find no tent site on their camp ground and no fire pit. They got sorted and I checked in. On the way out I joked with them that I worried about the state of our campsite.

Our campsite was much less private than it looked online. It looked like a sink hole and a few storms had taken down many of the trees, and a path had been worn between ours and the neighboring site. The grill had disappeared and the fire pit looked as it had been dragged 10' to the left of its original location.

We settled in anyhow, Daniel set up the hammock tent and rain tarp while I got Magnus settled and a fire started. Magnus absolutely hates camping. While setting up, I had a fallen branch get lodged in my Keen sandals so badly I was afraid I would bruise terribly. After that I couldn't stand to have my Keens' all the way on - this sort of ruined my excitement for the following days hike.

After we got settled in, it kept spitting rain and thundering and we had no way to cook except an open fire, which we had not planned for. Daniel had gotten the hammock tent set up better than he had ever before, and I had started a fire, in the rain, with mostly wet wood very well myself. After much discussion we decided to pack up and head home instead of crawling into the tent to sleep. We didn't want to sour ourselves with a bad experience, so we drove home and got here around 11 o'clock.

Sunday we spent resting and unpacking. Daniel had taken off Monday for recovery from camping. We went to see Incredibles 2 and took a short 9 mile ride in Shelby Bottoms at sunset to avoid the heat. Our rides are my favorite part of our weekends.