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July 13, 2006

Happy Campers

This past weekend, a bunch of my friends and I went camping and had an amazing time! We wish more people could have come, but we're awful event planners. Anyway, Vanessa, Spencer, Molly, Cathy, Pat, Ali, Greg, Brent, and I packed up all our tents, sleeping bags, lanterns, food, firewood, and most important of all... bug spray, and headed off to the campground where we had one of the best sites in the whole area. We were right on top of a grassy hill with a view of the gorge (or something gorge-like) behind us. Pat didn't appreciate my "Have you seen the gorge? It's gorgeous!" joke, but I know you all do.

Here's a step-by-step guide to camping for those of you who aren't experts like me.

Step 1 -- Start A Campfire

Step 2 -- Set Up Tents

Step 3 -- Hug Your Boyfriend

Step 4 -- Get the Food

Step 5 -- Gather Firewood

Step 6 -- Apply Copious Amounts of Bug Spray

Step 7 -- Wear Your Best Camping Gear

If you follow my expert camping guide you're sure to have a good time.

Anyway, here's Vanessa getting some food:

Rocks in the gorge:

Me hiding in the woods taking pictures... because I'm sketchy like that:

Cathy and Me:

Brent eating:

Brent (with his mouth full) and Me:

Greg and Ali:

Picnic bench by our hill:

Molly and Me:

Around the campfire:

Vanessa and the hatchet:

"Here Comes Joe!" the ice cream man:

Vanessa and Spencer:

Greg and Ali:

Brent took these random pictures of me without me knowing. In the first one, it looks like I'm doing the "I'm a little teapot" dance:

Vanessa, Spencer, and Brent:

Ali:

Spencer's hatchet that Brent is extremely jealous of:

Brent and Spencer:

Molly, Me, Vanessa, and Ali:

Everyone going exploring in the woods:

Brent and me on a very steep hill in the woods:

Campsite picture again:

The guys were mesmerized by the smoke coming out from underneath the bark. Our boyfriends are all so easily entertained:

Spencer posing with the hatchet:

REALLY gross spider:

I don't know if you noticed the little lumps all over its back, but when we tried to kill the spider by pouring soda over it (yes, girls kill insects with Diet Coke) the little bumps scrambled all over because they were actually baby spiders... eww!!

Lots of "explorer" pictures:

Me, Vanessa, and Molly on the edge of a cliff-like thing that led to the gorge-like thing. Yeah, I'd be a pretty bad explorer:

The guys told us to do an explorer pose and somehow this is what we came up with. I was holding a piece of bark that Vanessa was chopping with the hatchet and Molly was... uh... being Molly:

Spencer scalping Vanessa:

Molly and Brent (I love Molly's face):

In the woods:

Spencer's hatchet:

Brent's Swiss Army knife:

I like how the guys bring out all their toys for the one time they'll ever go exploring.

Molly on a log:

At the bottom of our gorge:

The guys were very excited to use their cutting toys to mark their territory. Spencer and Brent carved things for Vanessa and me in all the dead trees they could find. Don't worry, no living trees were harmed (for those of you who care about that stuff).

B <3 L:

Spencer carving Vanessa's initials with his hatchet:

VSR:

BR + LA:

Spencer:

I'm not sure what the point of this was:

I couldn't decide which one of these pictures I liked better, so I'm putting them both up:

We were surrounded by a lot of... nature. I don't really like all the creepy crawly nature, but here's one of the bugs we found in the woods:

The rocks we had seen from our campsite earlier:

Spencer found a dead tree just waiting to fall down and took it upon himself to help it along. Brent, of course, accepts any opportunity to use the hatchet, so he did a lot of the chopping too:

The guys both had to have their hand on the hatchet:

More camping fun:

A plane that kept flying over our site:

We played some net-less badminton on our field which was a lot of fun. Here's a picture of Cathy playing and me... poking around in the grass for some reason:

Spencer and Molly watching Ali and Vanessa playing badminton with Cathy and Me:

Pat:

Badminton:

Brent double-fisting the BBQ:

The food cooking (Spencer boiled hot dogs in beer for the chilli he made later):

Brent at the grill:

Brent and the hatchet:

Spencer:

Brent relaxing:

There's nothing like cooking over a campfire:

Food:

Beautiful sunset in the woods:

Greg is making a great face in this picture:

Brent by the fire:

Campfire:

The "hobo whiskey" as the guys called it:

Ali's dad gave us corn whiskey in a jar for our camping trip. I didn't try any but the guys' faces when they smelled it gave me a pretty good idea that I made the right choice.

The guys' new project-- melting bottles:

Pat and Brent:

Pat (the bottle was glowing from the heat):

Brent:

Spencer:

I used a 15 second exposure to take this picture of the moonlit clouds in the sky late at night:

Vanessa and Spencer writing "Vanessa" with the lantern (another 15 second exposure):

Ali and Greg writing "Ali" or "Alison" or something:

Brent and Me trying to write "Lauren":

Me trying to write "Brent":

Brent's second try at writing "Lauren":

Brent and Me under the lantern with a car going by behind us:

After sitting around the fire talking for a long time, we all went to bed only to wake up completely bruised since none of us cleared out the rocks under our tents. Oh well... I'll put that on next year's "Expert Guide to Camping."

Grilling bagels for breakfast on the keg grill:

Breakfast around the fire:

Brent insisted on grilling his bagel on a stick over the fire and it came out completely black. He ate it anyway:

Brent setting marshmallows on fire:

Don't eat that!

He ate it...

Hawks circling above the mountains:

Vanessa and Spencer got in a sticky marshmallow fight:

Around the fire:

Using his knife on the wood:

Aww:

Burning wood in the fire:

Spencer and Vanessa:

Ali and Greg:

Vanessa climbed in Ali's sleeping bag and her wonderful boyfriend took that golden opportunity to beat her to the ground with a rolled up sleeping mat:

Shocked onlookers:

Just kidding, everyone was laughing and no one got hurt.

Anyway, right before we left, Pat found a tic on his arm and got it out with the pliers on Brent's Swiss Army knife:

We packed up all our things around noon and headed home. On the way back to Greenwich we saw a beaver and this dam (probably not made by the beaver):

And finally, has anyone heard the Christmas song "Carol of the Bells?" Well, to keep ourselves occupied on the drive home, we sang it in four part harmony with the windows down so that everyone could enjoy it.

Ding Dong Ding Dong:

Before I end the camping entry, I have to say that we also went swimming in the giant river/lake that was right by the camping area. We all crossed the river and some of us (Molly and me) got caught on the rocks because we weren't all that happy with the muddy riverbed we had to walk through. I wish someone had brought a waterproof camera of some sort so that we could have taken pictures because it was one of the funniest things ever to watch Molly screaming before falling in the water and frantically running through the river.

Well, that's the end for camping! I have some pictures coming up soon from our recent trip to Marblehead, MA so come back!

Posted by lauren at July 13, 2006 07:54 PM

Comments

Posted by: brent at July 13, 2006 11:40 PM

Posted by: your lovER. at July 14, 2006 08:32 AM

Posted by: jocelyn at July 16, 2006 11:39 PM

Posted by: Amanda at July 19, 2006 12:39 AM