Camping

We went camping this weekend and had a blast. It started out a little rocky, with Ryan getting frustrated packing the car and then a few glitches at the campground, but overall it was such a great time.

Every time we go camping, I make a list, and Ryan helps me pack all of the items without a complaint, most of the time actually adding items to the list. However, as soon as it comes time to fit it in the car (regardless of whether we drive the civic or the sportage) he gets frustrated at how much we're bringing.
This time was not unlike all the others, he was getting aggravated at just how much we we were fitting into the car. Complaining, "we bring so much stuff!" but every time he does this, I challenge him to remove the things we wont use, and he can't. So, again, we loaded the car with EVERYTHING we'd need for three days and headed to Newport.

When we got to the campground and went in to check-in, they informed us that all tent sites are without electricity (something we've never done before). Clearly we were not prepared for a weekend sans electricity (we brought a refrigerator instead of a cooler, we had a blow up air mattress, radio, ihome, space heater just in case)... but we decided that we would try to make it work. Ok, we didn't just decide. We sat in the car, GPS'd the closest campground that might give us a site with electric, and that was over 20 miles away. We then thought about what we NEEDED that would use electric and how we could substitute. Then we decided we'd give it one night! And see...

So, we went to the site and set up our tent.... See picture at right!

And... then we proceeded to the closest Wal*Mart and found the most amazing piece of technology that exists...
It is called a power converter and it basically plugs into your cigarette lighter but you can plug in regular plugs into it!!
So, ok, we cheated!!
But we only used it for the Air Mattress and while we were packing up to power the DVD player and keep Maddie stationery!

Anyways... it was very fun! We met a large racoon who was very happy that Maddie couldn't finish her Chicken Nuggets for dinner (and left them on our picnic table for him!) It was actually very comical! Our site was adjacent to our friends' Matt & Teresa's site, so we did the fire and meals at their site (other than the nuggets the first night).
So, we were sitting at their fire while Maddie was fast asleep in our tent. Ryan went over to check something and stopped three feet from the picnic table and came running back saying, "Holy Crap! There's a huge racoon on our picnic table!" And he wasn't kidding! That guy was enormous. He didn't care that we saw him, didn't care that we shone the flashlight on him, all that did was get him to turn around and show us his face! When he was done with the scraps Maddie left him, he sauntered off the table and up the tree next to our tent!

Thank goodness he never came back!

There was a thunderstorm early Saturday morning at 2am, which, thank God, did not wake Madison!

Saturday we spent in Newport, walking around, eating at the Red Parrot, sitting by the water and then walking the cliff walk. So nice!

At night, we put Maddie to bed after some macaroni and cheese (made over the fire!). Then we were sitting by the fire and a skunk came right up into the site, walked underneath the screen tent around the picnic table and started eating the macaroni that Maddie dropped!! That thing was not afraid of us at all!! We were freaking out about it and with the help of our camping neighbors and their very bright lantern, the skunk left.
Until about two hours later, we were sitting at the picnic table playing cards when the skunk (I actually think it was a different one) came right into the tent under our table!! NOT COOL SKUNK!!!

After following it and taunting it with a flashlight (really smart, I know), he finally got a little ticked off and shot his tail straight up in the air! ABORT ABORT!!! We put the lights down and without spraying, he went down the road and away from our site!

So, camping for the weekend turned into Animal Planet Adventures!! It was a really great weekend though!
Can't wait until the second week in August, now. We're camping next to my parents in their motormen and on the other side will be my sister and her whole family!! I love camping and I love family time, so really, it can't get better than that!!