First camping trip of the year? Check.
April 19th found us at Sangchris Lake State Park, on the point with our tents and chairs and the magic V. Pete was kind enough to get there early to save our sweet spots overlooking the lake, although with the impending cold weather, we weren't too worried about them being taken from us. By the time Andriy, Witherbee and I showed up, he had pretty much set up camp. We assembled our tent and the spare tent we brought to share, cracked a beer and settled in. Before long, Ashleigh and Sculley arrived and our first night's crew was complete.
That first evening was cold and windy, but sooo wonderful. I have sat around countless campfires with these wonderful people and I never get tired of it. There are always refreshments to keep us happy/relaxed, there's usually a guitar with someone to play it and we just sit around like happy hippies, enjoying the outdoors, the fire and the company.
When we were younger, this was a familiar scene. When the weather turned nice, inevitably someone would bring up having a campfire at the lake, they would spread the word and we'd all meet up. It started out at South Rock Point on Lake Jacksonville, a very remote spot that was almost never occupied. I'm sure we weren't supposed to be out there, but no one ever stopped us.
South Rock Point got to the point where it was so overgrown that we couldn't get back there anymore. The city was either ignoring it, or they intentionally let it grow wild to keep us out. That didn't really stop us from campfire time...we just found a new spot. There are great memories there too, but nothing ever quite compared to South Rock Point.
Sorry about the digression...back to April 19th.
Once the sun set, it really got cold. In fact, temps were near freezing. But, the wind started to die down, we enjoyed Pete's homemade chili, brats, refreshments, a nice hot campfire and soon we weren't feeling the cold. Happy times.
April 19th found us at Sangchris Lake State Park, on the point with our tents and chairs and the magic V. Pete was kind enough to get there early to save our sweet spots overlooking the lake, although with the impending cold weather, we weren't too worried about them being taken from us. By the time Andriy, Witherbee and I showed up, he had pretty much set up camp. We assembled our tent and the spare tent we brought to share, cracked a beer and settled in. Before long, Ashleigh and Sculley arrived and our first night's crew was complete.
That first evening was cold and windy, but sooo wonderful. I have sat around countless campfires with these wonderful people and I never get tired of it. There are always refreshments to keep us happy/relaxed, there's usually a guitar with someone to play it and we just sit around like happy hippies, enjoying the outdoors, the fire and the company.
When we were younger, this was a familiar scene. When the weather turned nice, inevitably someone would bring up having a campfire at the lake, they would spread the word and we'd all meet up. It started out at South Rock Point on Lake Jacksonville, a very remote spot that was almost never occupied. I'm sure we weren't supposed to be out there, but no one ever stopped us.
South Rock Point got to the point where it was so overgrown that we couldn't get back there anymore. The city was either ignoring it, or they intentionally let it grow wild to keep us out. That didn't really stop us from campfire time...we just found a new spot. There are great memories there too, but nothing ever quite compared to South Rock Point.
Sorry about the digression...back to April 19th.
Chukins were in charge of breakfast the next morning, and desperately in need of coffee for hangover headaches, so we were up early. The Saturday crew slowly started to filter in. Margie & Dennis arrived first, followed later by Joe O'Neal. Denver was to arrive that evening after work (poor schmuck.) We had big plans for hiking, badminton, baseball and washers. The group decided to split up - hikers in one direction, game players in another.
The hiking crew set off for the trail. It was a really nice day - some sun, not too cool, fresh spring green starting to show in places. We came across, to no surprise, lots of flooding over the trail. Thankfully, we were able to blaze our own trails around the floodwaters and find the path on the other side.
We were feeling confident we would be able to continue to the end of the trail, since much of it was high above water and we were fortunate to find paths around the low wet spots. That is, until, we came across this place:
There didn't seem to be any way around it and the water looked deep enough to be unpleasant. Dennis braved out on the log, hoping he could find a shallow enough spot to jump. Unfortunately, one step too far and his boot sunk in the water. Ashleigh and Margie, being the bold adventurers they are, were convinced we could take a nearby fallen tree, lay it across the water and walk across it. That sounded like famous last words to me, and I'm a baby and didn't want wet feet, so I turned around and started backtracking. The rest of the group followed and thankfully we found our way back to the trailhead. A certain time of day was approaching and we had business to attend to.
We met up with the rest of the crew back at camp to learn that they had enjoyed some home run derby and washers. Sculley cooked us some burgers while some of us relaxed by the fire and the rest went to play badminton.
Finally, Denver arrived, our camping party of 10 was complete, and our Saturday evening continued into some unknown late hour.
All in all, it was a successful inaugural camping trip for 2013. Hopefully it won't be the last. Although, next time, let's hope the bottle of Goldschlager isn't polished off so early.
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