Camping

I have long been a fan of being outdoors. Most of my activities are geared toward it. Riding bikes being the largest. One of the things that has always gone with being outdoors and riding mountainbikes has been camping. When I was younger, it was something I looked very forward to. As I've gotten older, its been something that I do, but it had lost some appeal. That all changed on Friday night.

I took Jacqueline on her first camping trip. One thing my parents did not do with me when I was a kid, was take me camping. I always joke with mom that I learned to do these sorts of activities in spite of them. I did not want to have the same statements made to me when Jacqueline grows up. So on Friday, we set off for Lake Mineral Wells State Park to camp with other families from our church. She was excited, but probably not completely sure what she was in for.

We arrived prior to sundown and were able to set up our "campsite" as she called it while the sun was still up. I put campsite in quotes because it was just putting up our tent and unrolling the sleeping bags. But hey, she thought it was cool. As the evening wore on, she was all over the place. She played with all the other kids, made the adults take her on hikes in the woods, and stirred the fire enough to get all smokey. When I finally made her crawl into her sleeping bag, she collapsed and was immediately asleep. She slept hard all night long!

Saturday morning was brilliant. She and I hiked all over the place. We climbed on rocks, we threw stones in the lake, we followed trails with reckless abandon. It didn't matter where the trail went, we were going to follow it! It was amazing to see the world once again through those young eyes as she discovered all those things that I remember discovering myself a long time ago.

When we got home on Saturday, she was tired. We took showers and ate some chinese food and mostly did nothing the rest of the day. I put her to bed early that night and she was happy and content. She had survived her first camping trip and really enjoyed it. She told me that we have to go back and do it again. Yep, camping just became fun again.