Outdoorsy

We are becoming quite the outdoorsy type, and I'm loving it! We recently went on a backpacking trip with our friends Tom & Amanda. We hiked Cold Mountain and camped at a little place known as Hog Camp. The campsite was one of the best we'd ever seen; it was a wide open green pasture surrounded by woods with a sweet fire pit and a huge tree in the middle that looked like a slightly smaller version of the Tree of Life from The Lion King. Tom did a great job planning the hike and navigating the whole way, and Steve came through with an impressive dinner spread including foil packs with beef & veggies and a bottle of wine! Yes, I said a bottle of wine. He was even kind enough to carry ALL of it in his pack. The guys also did their fair share of chopping logs for the fire, which earned them a few blisters each. We heard an occasional yell of victory/relief over finally splitting a log. What is it with men and wood? and hatchets? I'll never understand. Although the guys did most of the heavy labor, the girls did their part too by helping set up tents and gather kindling... but we mostly chatted :) Amanda did gather some fine looking marshmallow sticks though. And I fried the eggs in the morning as well as kept tabs on Riley, who did fabulously on his second backpacking trip. He was so funny too because he could not stand to be in the back or middle of the group while hiking, he just had to be in the front blazing the trail. That's my dog.

This past weekend we visited Pocahontas State Park with our home group and did a bit of "car camping." There were 8 of us and 3 dogs. Steve delivered again with an incredible meal of kebobs cooked over the fire. We all enjoyed sitting around telling stories and talking about life. What we did not enjoy was the onslaught of ticks! One person had a final count of 10 ticks found on his body. We're currently looking into Frontline for humans. Despite the ticks and the creepy wolf spider Steve ran into, the trip was a lot of fun. I think the two firstimers got a complete and overall enjoyable camping experiencing. One highlight had to be the "diet coke eggs." We forgot a pan, so we improvised by using empty diet coke cans to "fry", boil, and even poach the eggs. Who came up with that anyway? Ingenious.

We really do love experiencing the great outdoors through hiking and camping. We're able to spend focused, quality time with each other and our friends, eliminate distractions, work-out, and be reminded of how awesome and creative our Creator God is.