Jami in the Great Outdoors

Back to the real world today, after a weekend of camping - without Eddie. Talk about relaxing (okay, a little rough at first, but once I got past missing my boy, we were cool), by Saturday morning I'd mellowed pretty much all the way through. We took a canoe ride down the river (the Yough, for those who care), spent some time reading and napping, the Husband fished, and we cooked food over the fire. M went, as did M's sister and nephew - it's always nice to reconnect with friends and something about a campfire and a few beers helps the conversation along. One thing I appreciate about camping is the feeling of self-sufficiency it instills, even for minor challenges. I set up the tent myself, not for the first time, and each time I do it I feel proud of myself. I built a fire. I negotiated the (extremely minor) rapids in our canoe. This weekend I'd even taken along some bread I made and, boy, did I feel brilliant when I was toasting bread made by my own hands over a real fire in the woods. Not that camping is all great. I'm not a fan of public showers, even though these ones were awesomely designed so that I didn't have to touch ANYTHING except the knobs, not even a curtain!). It was pretty cold the first night, but I put a hoodie on, with the hood up, stole the Husband's blankets and survived. We probably won't camp anymore this year, it's too cold and the Husband can't usually take a whole weekend off, anyway. But another part of camping is that there's always next year! Wanna come with us?