FRIDAY/SATURDAY, 26/27 JUL 2024
CAMPING
My wife left on Thursday for an out-of-state bachelorette party, blessing me with the opportunity to spend a weekend bonding with our two girls. A few weeks ago I had pondered over what I could do with them that would be affordable and memorable.
I first debated driving them up to Asheville to camp in the mountains, but then remembered why that idea always falls through - what if they don't like sleeping outdoors and then it becomes this whole big woo woo woo... - which led me to the plan I finally wound up going with - I would take them camping at a local KOA campground! This would be affordable, fun, and easy to cancel if someone starts having a terrible breakdown.
The KOA campground is like 6 minutes from our house, so it's not a full-on wild adventure, but for the kids I figured this would be an excellent proving grounds, and also theoretically should expose them to several of the more pivotal aspects of camping in general (such as sitting around a fire, catching bugs and critters, and sleeping outside).
The day before our trip, I checked the weather forecast: 100% chance of heavy downpours and thunderstorms all weekend.
Now this is the part that I loved the most - I told the kids what the weather looked like, where the campsite was located, etc, and gave them the choice...and both voluntarily (and excitedly) agreed to go tent-camping in the middle of a friggin monsoon! ...couldn't be more proud of my girls :)
First thing I did was set up the tent. I had them hang out in the car while I handled this part, although Allie (the older of the two) wound up proving vital in the assembly process. She came out and helped get the tent pitched in the heavy rain. None of these photos really give justice to just how rainy it was during setup, but the tent has to be assembled before the rainfly can be installed, which meant the waterproof floor was like a small kiddie pool before we got it covered properly.
Once the tent was up, I pretty much just sat back in the car and deliberated over what could be done to protect the fire pit. I considered making a new fire pit, but didn't want to get in trouble with the management. I contemplated tipping the picnic table up onto one end to act as a high tarp anchor, but thought we might like to have a table.
Finally I decided I should park the car strategically behind the fire pit, in such a way that I could anchor two corners of the tarp to the passenger windows, and the other two to some trees. I forgot my junky orange paracord at home, so I had to use the nicer blue stuff to cut these longer runs...kind of a bummer, but certainly WAY better than just not having enough cord to solve the problem.
For the cords anchored to the car, I just pulled them through the windows and rolled them up tight...nothing extra was necessary to keep them locked in place.
For the cords anchored to trees, I used the tautline hitch (two in, one out) - a knot that can easily adjust tension and hold where it's set.
The tarp was a recent Temu acquisition, and I had been under the impression that it would have reinforced holes at the corners, but I was wrong. As a temporary remedy, I fastened the ends of my fixed lines to the tarp with a single loop surgeon's knot...these would be cleaned up later, but for now they needed to be strong enough to keep the tarp from filling with water and falling into the fire/onto our heads.
This whole first act - getting basic coverage established in the pouring rain - took maybe an hour or so. There are no pictures from during that time because I was running around like a nut in the pouring rain, trying to get a camp together so I could get the girls out of the car as quickly as possible. In fact, even once it was all basically set up, I shifted focus over to the all-important task of getting a campfire started. So the first real shots I got were of the basic setup and the initial fire...as you can see, I had already tested the fire on some bacon before I got around to digging out my phone for pictures. At this point, the rain died down for a small window.
With a break in the rain and no guarantee as to how long it would last, the kids instantly wanted to push the boundaries and explore their surroundings. I told them they could go as far as they want, as long as they can still see me...which pretty much ended up with them going to the end of the tent camping driveway (this KOA is mostly focused on RV camping, so there are only three tent spots).
They decided to make s'mores before dinner, which I thought seemed like a good idea so we went ahead and did that, and then I started cooking up some ground beef for burritos. The plan was just to cook the whole pound as a brick, then break it off as needed on a burrito-by-burrito basis...this worked out great, but it was critical to find a part of the fire that put off very little heat.
In s the night, there was a frog party going on in the stream behind our tent. It sounded like thousands of frogs, all seeing each other for the first time in ten years...they were absolutely nuts. the kids took flashlights and helped frogs get to the party faster, so they were kind of like DD's or valets or something. Then they found these two who had escaped the party for a little...intimate time...I asked the girls what they though was happening and they were torn between a piggy back ride or twins that hadn't separated yet - I told them those were both really good guesses, and that it can actually be very difficult to distinguish between twins that have yet to separate and frogs doing piggy back rides...just not ready to have that talk yet I guess.
Once the sun went down, I loaded the fire up with basically everything we'd collected/scavenged/bought for the fire. I hoped to have some small ember in the morning, but with the weather we were having that wouldn't be too likely.
The next morning was pretty rainy and wet. We all agreed we had had fun, but working fruitlessly to cook bacon and croissants over the last few struggling embers just didn't sound like the right way to unfold our morning - so we all agreed to pack it in and make camping food at home for the morning.
We filled our croissants with strawberry pie filling, folded them and pan fried them in butter, just as we would have cooked them on our cookin' rock if the weather had been a little less unforgiving. The campin' pies turned out really great, and we added honey to our bacon which was also good.
Finally, we set up all our tents and tarps in the house for the day, so they could dry completely in spite of the heavy rain still pouring down outside.
SUNDAY, 28 JUL 2024
THE SEARCH FOR CROW-BROWS GROWS NARROW(er)
This Sunday, as I was packing away all the now dried camping gear, I noticed some crows noticing me - so I casually wandered out and dumped a whole jar of unsalted peanuts while they watched.
Although it took a while, eventually I got some nibbles. It seemed as though there was one who had to approve the snack/area as safe before others would dare partake.
I didn't want to risk ruining this moment by going out for a better picture, so this "through the screen" shot is all I was able to get. Lucy, my youngest, has named the protector crow Mr. Crowley.
I know this may not be a huge step, but to me it honestly is! This whole crow-thing started like 2-3 months ago, and this is the first time I can say definitively and with full confidence and certainty, that some crows actually ate the crow snacks I put out! This will fuel my motivation for another year, easily!
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