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Every year in October, we go camping to celebrate our anniversary. Our lives are always full, and too often hectic. Our bedroom has at least 20 different LED lights that stay on all night from various machines and gadgets. We grasp a bit too tightly to the internet and our cell-phone data plan. But when we camp, we unplug. We are out in nature with no schedule and no electricity. Love.
The first year (2003) we camped at Sam Houston State Park. There were only five campsites in the whole place, and we were the only campers. We should have known. We bought our tiny tent the day before we camped. It rained. Excuse me, it poured. And we didn’t know brand spanking new tents need to be waterproofed. Or else they leak. Therefore it rained IN our tent. All night.
The single outhouse in the campground was a tad neglected; the showers were outdoor stalls on a concrete pad. And you had to hike to get to them. So you could be sweaty and dirty by the time you got back from showering. I forgot to pack us two sets of toiletries, so we only had one bottle of shampoo and soap. We decided to shower together on the guys’ side, because we figured a woman discovering a man in the women’s showers would freak out and report us to the authorities, whereas a man seeing a woman in the guy’s side would just go, “Hey, nice,” and then Benjamin would beat him up. Thankfully since the soggy campground AND showers were empty, Benjamin got to save his fists for some other day.
We don't have any pictures from that trip, because as an anniversary present, I gave Benjamin our first digital camera. It was a $50 keychain digital camera from Brookstone. And all the pictures got erased the minute we plugged it into the computer at home. Why does that not surprise me. So, here's us two years later, in 2005, when we bought a point&shoot camera and took lots of pictures.
Since the first Houston camping trip, we’ve lived in San Antonio and camped at Garner State Park. For a couple years while I worked at Six Flags Fiesta Texas, I had weekdays off instead of weekends, so we camped Monday through Wednesday. The amazingly beautiful park, we would have almost to ourselves.
Garner has nearly 400 campsites, three stores, sand volleyball, basketball, tons of hiking and biking trails, and a gorgeous fresh, clear river with natural water slides and swinging ropes. And sparkly clean bathrooms. And the weather is usually amazing. Here's us hiking at Garner in 2007.
However, two years ago (2008), it rained the entire weekend. Non. Stop. While our tent no longer leaked, it was too cramped to hang out inside for very long. So we huddled under our tarp in 50-something degrees, shivering and damp.
And Benjamin stared at bugs in our dishpan.
When the cold, wet, bug-staring got old, we hung out in the car. But it’s not very exciting to be stuck in your car. Especially when it’s not going anywhere. So we went home and the next day, when we were supposed to still be camping, we went to Natural Bridge Caverns. That was a fun, dry adventure. Okay, so the below picture was actually taken at Garner for the hour the sun came out. It wasn't warm enough to swim. We just got in our swim trunks and stared at the water and wished. And climbed on a warm rock to take a picture.
Last year (2009), we went to Garner without realizing it was a holiday weekend. I’m used to stock market holidays, but Columbus Day is just a school holiday. So the park was crowded because of the holiday weekend. And because of the giant multi-city girl scout troop camping that weekend. And because of the south-Texas cycling summit held at the park where all the roads are closed or full of cyclists and all their families are camping at Garner. So the park wasn’t crowded at all. It was completely sold out. And we didn’t have reservations. We moved campsites EVERY DAY trying to find one that wasn’t reserved, didn’t have a drunken bash going on till three in the morning, and wasn’t smack in the middle of a hundred girl scouts screaming and giggling by five a.m.
It wasn’t traumatic. At all. Oh yes, and we forgot the camera.
So this year, we covered all our bases. Reservations. Perfect weather forecast. No scout trips or cycling tours. No holiday weekend. Camera. And then we still waited in line to get a camping spot from 8pm to 10:30pm. Two and a half hours. We were told their new reservation system is slow. Um, yeah.
Okay, but enough with the sarcasm, because we really seriously do have an awesome time every year. The drama is part of the adventure. Or so my husband reminds me twenty times a day when I am having minor meltdowns.
This year the only imperfection was that it was too short. The weather was ideal (80 during the day, 60 at night). Our campsite was shady and quiet (well okay, so I did wake up at 2am to the Mexican Mafia two campsites down singing Native American war cries at the top of their lungs, but my trusty ear plugs stomped that out real fast). Best of all, we relaxed.
In the morning, it was cool and we cooked omelettes and drank steaming coffee while wearing sweatshirts. By midday, we were sweating in the hot sun, then splashing in the river and trying to catch inch-long minnows in an 8 oz Aquafina bottle. (It worked. We finally got one after an hour of patient waiting. Well, I was patiently waiting, holding the bottle between my feet because the minnows liked to taste my feet, and I figured eventually one of them would come taste my feet and accidentally end up in the bottle between my feet, which is exactly what happened). Benjamin napped on the warm rocks with his feet in the cool water. Sounds nice, huh? When I finally caught one, I shook Benjamin awake, and exultingly held the bottle up to him. He took one look at the minnow darting around, running into the walls of the bottle, and said, “Oh, poor thing, it’s scared. Let it go.” Seriously?! I gave it to the little girl downstream instead.) I'm sort of cheating on the picture here; it's from 2005. But Benjamin's hand and the minnows still look exactly the same, I promise.
Then we came back to the campsite and napped in our giant hammock. And when it got chilly, we started a bonfire and ate blackened burgers with a side of flaming marshmallows. When we started fearing our Crocs would melt from how close our feet were getting to the warm flames, we cuddled up on the air mattress in our tent and were happy. This photo is also from 2005, and taken with a point&shoot camera, but it's a good representation of how we spend our nights when we camp, no matter what year it is.
When it all ended the next day, we sighed over the beautiful weather, our cozy campsite (neighbors moved out), our comforting hammock, being totally unplugged and completely at ease. And we took this picture and went home.
