cuz we're the Party People, night and day

2011 October Break (I know) Day 1 occurred precisely as follows...

Wife out of town. Kids no help at all. Coffee in hand, I pulled camping equipments from their various and scattered resting places to amass them into the perfect load. 4 days of self-contained fun don't pack itself. There was yelling and curses, but it all got done.

We pointed the race van East and hauled ourselfs and our bicycle camping stuff over to the lot at Arroyo Seco. N___ had volunteered (?) to share the load by towing the BOB trailer...


She carried the food bag. That is not our horse poop.

She was surprised. This was her 1st trailer pull. I believe it was eye opening. She mentioned several times she had a new understanding of my heroic and underplayed feats of haul. No, she did not phrase it quite like that. Yes, I am proud of her for offering (!) and for her haul.



Loaded.


That is 4 days worth of lollygagging, good eatin', lounging about, drankin' creek cold beer, 20 questions and wouldyourather.


Those are my boon companions. Prepared to shoulder the load out Indian's, 3.5ish miles to the trail turning down to the Good Spot- that spreading oak near the horse bridge.










Day1 was just getting out and settling in. We obeyed the fire ban, and cooked (minestrone and couscous) on the propane 2 burner, but we threw some elbows by using the Esbit for a twig fire in the circle to make s'mores. Because how are you going to camp without them?

As tradition demands, I forgot stuff. This time I saved weight by (again) forgetting my own sleeping bag. Well, I was busy making sure everone else had theirs. N and I shared hers. She was less than thrilled.



2 things stand out for me:

1)in forcing these little people to leave behind their electronics and customary pursuits, they open up like you wouldn't believe. You can talk to them about funny and interesting things and not just dog their steps about the same old same old. We played a lot of 20 Questions, and a lot of wouldyourather. We read aloud. It is worth doing, and cannot be replicated in the home.

B) Couscous is quite possibly the greatest asset to camp cooking ever. It just needs water. No cooking needed! SO easy, nutritious, and filling.



The moon came up over the ridge as we sat around our twig fire and chose between the rathers of "sit on top of 20 hundred bombs OR live in a rock."