I've always been an outdoor girl. Credit that to my Dad, whom I spent lots of time with during the pre-teen years. My Dad owns property on Guntersville Lake, and he spent many weekends working on the property. I would always tag along, roaming through the woods while he worked. I had a friend named Kenny whose parents owned the lot nearby. We would run through the woods with "swagger sticks" blazing trails. We jumped from rock to rock on the banks. I also swam in the lake and learned to ski, albeit not very well. The swimming hole was best at Kenny's because you could touch bottom there, but beside our red boat house there was an excellent fishing hole. We still pull bream and catfish out of the water today and all of my kids caught their first fish from the boat house dock.
I was also a girl scout and loved camping, and went on to become a summer church camp counselor for two summers post high school. No air conditioned cabins at the time. No bother to me. If you visit my house today, you will see I would rather work outdoors than indoors. It the weather is nice, I might mow the lawn instead of clean a bathroom. Oh well.
So recently my family went on a camping trip to Auburn, Al. Hannah has not been camping since she was three with the family, so I guess you can say it was past time. We took a borrowed tent, and one borrowed sleeping bag since one of ours seems to have disappeared. (don't worry...we had the other four on hand so no we did not all share one sleeping bag). We picked up Scott at Auburn and went to Chewacla State Park. Chewacla is about 5 minutes from his dorm room. Somehow Friday night the campground was booked, so we took a very disappointed twelve year old to a hotel for one night. ***Note we did try to make a reservation but were assured that one would not be needed. That's Auburn people for you. Oh well. We arrived early Saturday morning for try number two and set up our tent. The campground is really quite nice and the first hint of fall was in the air. Temperatures were great and it was wonderful to spend time with Scott.
Outdoor camping is a lot of work. Especially the preparation beforehand...packing and loading the van with all the essentials. The difference from just checking into a hotel (which my hubs prefers) is packing the food and drinks, items to eat them on and eat them with. Also, packing your own bed. Quite an extensive list for folks who don't camp regularly. In order to save money we cooked all of our meals at the campground on the grill, and also a Coleman Stove for breakfast. Lowell, Scott, and James set up the tent twice. That is because when we arrived early Sat. morning we claimed the first spot available, but later found one we liked better and relocated. Above is a picture of the first site.
So, what exactly did we do all day? We hiked to Chewacla Falls. I am using the term Falls extremely loosely. Due to the lack of rain in Alabama, they were more of a trickle. You will see what I mean. After our hike, Scott returned to his dorm room to do some studying and Hannah and James got a little bored so they explored some more. Chewacla has an old fashioned playground equipped with a teeter-totter. I laughed so hard I cried watching James torture Hannah on that thing. I did get some video but not the funniest. When I got on the teeter totter James did the same to me. If America's Funniest Home vidos had been there, I can guarantee we would be winning. I screamed my head off. You see, due to child birth, I really don't have any abominal muscles. When James tilted me upright at a 60 degree angle, I was sure I was coming down face first. I couldn't straighten up my back to compensate for the tilt. It really was scary, and I am sure I was way more than 3 feet off of the ground...honest! Anyway, we eventually mastered the crazy see saw and had fun together...like you are supposed to do in the first place.
The rocks are black where there was actually a little water falling. The boys climbed up the middle to view the lake at the top.
That's me making the Hobos. I would like to point out the mini-van in the background, our version of a truck, which was packed to the ceiling with camping equipment. I have to point this out because one day, young mom mini-van haters who drive them any way, you will appreciate yours!
Scott returned later that afternoon and we cooked Hobos on the grill and made S'Mores on the campfire for dessert. We played a round robin game of storytelling where everyone adds a sentence until you have some crazy story. We played that for a long time until ours were the only voices in the campground. Time for some shut eye. The sun shone brightly into our tent at about 7 AM and a few of us got up, others slept a couple more hours. My only complaint? The bath house was a bit far away and of course I had to go in the wee hours of the night. I should have slept next to the tent door because I had to climb over Lowell to get out. We had a great time, stayed on a budget, and got away from the hum drum of T-town for a while.
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