Kyle and I decided it was time to try a family camping trip. This being the first opportunity for us to go out this summer, it was a learning experience and quite the adventure! We bought all the necessities, picked a location (2+ hours away), packed the car, the cooler, and the dog, and hit the road! The weather was beautiful and the southern Missouri scenery was beautiful too! Unfortunately, upon arriving at our destination, we discovered there were no more camping sites available...with no GPS signal, no map, and no familiarity with this new wilderness, we were left to wander, seemingly aimlessly, until we stumbled upon our lucky second destination. Slightly frazzled and frustrated by our circumstances, Dexter added to the madness with a sudden car sickness spell (so nasty!)! Things were looking up when we arrived at our site at 6:30pm! We had to kick it into turbo gear to get the tent set up (for the first time ever), collect firewood (because naturally we didn't get any before leaving), and start a fire (with an empty lighter, about 6 matches, and zero burning paper), and blow up an air mattress (by hand in 90+ degree weather) all before dark. Needless to say, we made it! It was tense there for a while, but we pulled together and got things done in the most efficient way we knew possible.
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| Kyle and Dex out collecting firewood for our fire |
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| Our site when we unloaded the car and before any real progress had been made... |
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| Our site after the tent had been set up and the fire built! |
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| Kyle begging the fire to start! |
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| Success! We did it!! |
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| Kyle and Dex had ticks all over them...I, on the other hand, just got attacked by mosquitos and between the two ankles had somewhere near 30 bug bites. This is Monday morning's attempt at relieving the ITCH!! AHHH!!! |
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| I decided that inflicting "itch" on prisoners of war would be an effective tactic...it's MISERABLE! |
After a rocky night filled with Dexter getting acquainted with every foreign noise of nature, we woke early to the noise of 3-4 ORV's revving up their engines and doing dry-runs through our camping area....LOVELY! Making lemonade out of lemons, we got the fishing gear together and headed to the lake to try our luck on the open water. Well, after a steamy 2 mile hike through a very wooded terrain, we re-emerged back where we started and set up our fishing post. And after about 2 hours and no success, we packed up our gear, headed back to the site, plucked the ticks off Kyle and the dog, and headed home. All in all, it was a success. We now know how to expedite the camping "process" and also know never to bring Dex again...HAHA! He's definitely a city dog! Next weekend we get to go camping again...it should be a smooth and enjoyable experience!! :)
