Me and Andy went camping for the first time since being married. And we went alone. It was only mostly bad. Not all.
But mostly.
We went to a lake lot that his family owns in Missouri. Sounds pretty awesome, right?
Welp, this is what it looked like when we got there.
Apparently no one had been there in a few years.
I'd like to label that Things That Fell Through the Cracks #1.
After seriously considering getting back in the car and driving home, we started pulling them weeds. Andy has at least two machetes in his car at all times, so he got out one and started going at it Rambo style.
Then there were the mosquitos. So many mosquitos, so little bug spray. Or no bug spray. Yep, no bug spray. Things That Fell Through the Cracks #2.
So here we have me sitting in the tent hiding from the bugs.
While that awesome guy makes a fire. And calls me "princess," to which I responded something like, "if that were true, I wouldn't be camping."
Don't worry, this has a happy ending.
The sun went down, we roasted hot dogs and I burnt my leg on the skewer. (Side note, the burn marks looked like a snake bite. The next morning I woke up and was convinced I was bitten by a snake. I was so confused.)
Aside from the burning, things were actually pretty awesome.
Until we heard some rustling in the weeds.
Just kidding!
Actually I'm not.
I was all like, "what's that?" and Andy was all like, "probably someone gathering firewood...at midnight."
Ya, it wasn't
It crawled through the weeds to Andy's car, where we could see it.
And Andy thought it was a MOUNTAIN LION.
"Get in the tent," he told me.
"No, it's fine."
"Get in the TENT." He said it this time in his super serious voice, and then grabbed a log out of the fire and yelled "GEEEET! GEET!" to the mountain lion/small cat.
The night ended with us both in the tent, with the food (that was my idea), listening for the mountain lion, then eventually falling asleep.
Although I didn't sleep very well. I give credit to the FREAKING BIRDS that took turns torturing me. I guess I'm a light sleeper.
In the morning Andy made bacon on our awesome camping stove. That was pretty awesome.
Then, at 8am, we decided to pack up and head home.
But not until we discovered Things That Slipped Through the Cracks #3 which mmmm just let me say involved the fact that there was no running water and Andy said he thought there was a port-a-potty near, which there wasn't so...
Moving on.
This cute little screen thing was where Andy's Grandma cooked everyone biscuits and gravy for breakfast whenever they camped as a family. I mean, adorable. Although not so much anymore. Now it looks like a scene from one of those horror movies where you know that the young couple camping alone is definitely gonna DIE, but we didn't, so there's that.
We did take a 10 minute hike before we left to see the lake. And that was definitely long enough.
The good news is that I'm not ruined for camping forever. I mean, it was rough. At one point I pulled out a trash bag to clean up a little and Andy was like, "Oh, bringing a trash bag was a good idea. I wouldn't have thought of that." Oh Lord.
Here's to getting better at this thing, and making lots of memories.
love, emm-kay
