Tales from Around the Campfire

Last weekend, my family took a little trip up to Blue Ridge Resevoir in Northern Arizona.  It's amazing how the scenery changes in the state, where it goes from cactus to pine trees in a few hours.  My family use to go camping every year at least once and since moving to Arizona we haven't gone at all.  I guess now that we are all working and have such different schedules to contend with it gets harder to plan for these type things.  But we decided to do it again, because who knows when the next time might be, hopefully sooner than later.  We were all kicking ourselves for not doing this sooner.  It turned out to be a great, relaxing weekend. 

I learned some things along the way...

1) Pit toilets can actually smell pleasant. I'm not kidding on this one.  We are used to the type of camping where you only have the pungent, bug infested pit toilets and they are usually not too pretty.  I was gearing up for the experience taking a few deep breathes of delicious fresh air before heading into the dreaded pit toilet.  Boy, was I surprised to find out that it actually smelled pretty good in there, like cinnamon!  Ha.  They had about 20 air fresheners in there and also a bug repellent.  Took care of that little bug/disgusting smell problem.  Very nice.

2) Camping is fun, except for the whole sleeping on the ground part.  The campsite was actually really well groomed and had flat surfaces with no roots or huge rocks jutting into your back.  Still it was almost impossible to find a comfortable position.  Maybe I'm getting too old for this sleeping on the ground business.  Next time, we might want to get a bit thicker air mattress or pad to sleep on.  If there is a next time... Just kidding.

Sydney's smiling now.  This was before we had to sleep in those little tents back there.
Okay, it wasn't that bad.  

3) It's nice to be out of touch from the world.  We didn't have any phone service up there and you know what??  I survived without the smartphone for the weekend.  I have a problem with having to be constantly entertained, but I think that is sort of what our society has made us into, isn't it?  It's refreshing to unplug for awhile and just curl up with a good book, play cards, and sit around the fire. 

4) I miss water a lot!  We went kayaking! Isn't everything just prettier with water??  I grew up around boats.  I miss being around water.  Pools do not have the same appeal as hanging out by the marina or jumping off the docks.  Sigh. 

5) I found some great reads.  I've been wanting to read The Help for ages now, since I kept hearing all the rave reviews.  It did not disappoint.  I couldn't put it down.  Curling up with a good book and having the time to read it cover to cover is one of the best things!

6) S'mores are just ok.  Not as good as I remember them being.  Meh.  Although, roasting the marshmellows over the fire still enjoyable.

With all said and done, we'd like to do it again sometime, without the sleeping on the ground part!  Just kidding!  It's cool.