camp crazy

This past weekend, I was a part of an exhilarating camping trip in Taconic State Park with a group of 8 friends. The trip was intended to replace the Burning Man excursion that everyone had been really looking forward to, but couldn't make it to this August. A month in the making, we had two wonderfully relaxing, rugged, cell-phone free days in the woods. In all honesty, I'm still catching up on all of the sleep I lost, what with the rocks under my mat-less sleeping back and the black bears roaming outside my tent after dark. Nonetheless, every waking hour was fun-filled. Some highlights:

+playing Catch Phrase nearly all the time
+warming up in front of the campfire
+coffee from an old-school percolator in the mornings
+discovering a playground after dark and enjoying swingsets with flashlights in hand
+scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast
+collecting logs
+playing house in our little private tents
+a 5-hour hike up to and past Bash Bish Falls
+climbing and scaling every boulder in sight
+running off the trail into the leaves and over log bridges like a witch
+dinners: BBQ chicken, baked potatoes, grilled veggies, hot dogs, cheeseburgers, baked beans, mac 'n' cheese, cole slaw, mushrooms
+whiskey lemonades by the fire
+a new love for head-lamps
+a cute little frog sighting
+no bear sightings
+S'MORES!