So, on Friday Andrew calls to ask if I want to go camping with some of his friends on Saturday night.  As in, the-next-day-Saturday night.  Less-than-24-hours-later Saturday night.

Of course, I said no.

No, because I wanted to RELAX during my first weekend free from school.  I wanted to sleep in my own bed.  I didn’t want to worry about organizing and packing (much less locating) all our camping gear up.

What’s that you say?  Camping IS relaxing?  Yes, camping is relaxing ONCE YOU’RE THERE and unpacked and the weather is perfect and SOMEONE ELSE did all the planning for you.

Well, once Andrew offered a little more information, like that he knew where our camping stuff was, and that the campsite was only a 30-minute drive and that we didn’t have to go until dinnertime on Saturday, and that another female had already taken care of much of the food planning, I started to warm up to the idea.

So we went.  And it was fun.  The location was actually the giant parcel of land (100 acres, maybe?) belonging to the family of one of Andrew’s co-workers.  There was a tiny ‘cabin,’ but it was all but useless.  Apparently it’s being remodeled/renovated later this summer…

Disclaimer: it’s looks a little red-neck, and maybe it was.  I mean, there were dirt bikes for pete’s sake!  At least they were all Moog engineers, (except me–a student–and the friends’ fiancee–a teacher) which really just means that the bikes were NICE and in good shape.  I don’t know why, but that fact made me feel a bit better.  I mean, we were in the sticks.

Hadrian had a blast.  Actually, that would be understatement.  He’s never had so much fun in his life.  He’s still sleeping it off…

Dead trees were cut down with a chainsaw for firewood…

Bananas were sauteed in butter as appetizers…  Amazing!  Slice some up and throw them in a skillet with butter–I dare you not to love them.

Dinner: corn, beans x 2 and burgers (note Andrew’s cheese-less patty).  Sahlen’s hot dogs and brats were next, as well as some surprisingly good Wegmans pre-made potato salad.  I’m not usually into pre-made “tub” salads, but this one wasn’t bad at all.  Actually kinda good.  Must be the camping talking.

We set our tents up in row on the makeshift driveway.  Thank goodness for air mattresses–I don’t care that it’s not hard-core camping; I value my sleep, AND my back!

Plus, there was NO TOILET.  It was trees and thank-goodness-I thought-to-bring toilet-paper–tell me that’s not hard-core!  I mean, even our boundary-waters trip up in Minnesota and Canada in which we had to CARRY OUR CANOES (wish I’d been blogging then!) came with holes in the ground at each campsite…

Not surprisingly, I was up before 6 a.m. the next morning.  Between the birds and other woodland creatures, nature is just deafening at sunrise!  I did, however, come prepared:

I paired a banana and some peanut butter with my Bible study and enjoyed some peace and quiet before people started stirring around 7:30.

Also brought running gear in case the opportunity presented itself.  (It did, of course.)

I took Hadrian with me for a loop I think was about 2.5 to 3 miles.  HUGE downhill one way, HUGE uphill the other.  I dropped him off at the campsite and did it again myself, this time in reverse once I got to the bottom so I could run the middle, more shaded, less hilly length twice on the second go-around.  Fifty-four minutes later, I was pooped!

We ended our short stay with Andrew giving one of the dirt bikes a try.  He had fun, but I don’t think he’s itching to go buy one any time soon…  That’s the problem with having lots of single male friends–they all have expensive toys!

Oh well, he has a (hot) wife 🙂  Or at least that’s what I keep telling him.