For a very long time, Torrey and I managed to get out camping an average of once a month. But lately we have become far too busy, and before last weekend, we had not spent the night in our tent since our backpacking trip in late May. We finally got away again, and it was soooo nice to be out. We decided to go for just one night, leaving Saturday morning and coming back on Sunday. When we arrived we were told that all the campsites had been full the night before, and there were no guarantees of finding an open site. Fortunately, lots of people cleared out Saturday morning, and we found an awesome site that is far from the road and from other campers.
I took lots of pictures of our food, joking about starting a food blog. I won't do that, but we did have really tasty hobo dinners and biscuits from the dutch oven.
It was an absolutely gorgeous night.
The stars were amazing. Here is a constellation I learned to recognize while we were out. Do you know what it is? If you do, leave me a comment and show me how star-smart you are. If I had a prize to give I would offer it, but instead you will just earn bragging rights if you are correct. Here is a clue - late at night in October you will see this constellation setting in the west. It may help to view a larger version.
We spent a good chunk of the evening sitting around the fire enjoying the flames.
In the morning we had breakfast, and while we were eating, a bizarre creature came through our camp. When Andrew was in Junior High here in California he had to make an insect collection, so my Dad and I took him out to the desert to find some specimens for his project. One of the insects we brought back home was a darkling beetle. We killed it and pinned it on styrofoam to dry, and we were surprised to find the next day that it had dripped something out of it's abdomen that melted the styrofoam from underneath it. I have been intrigued by the things ever since. Apparently it is here threatening to spew styrofoam-melting liquids on me for having disturbed it's progress across the desert.
After breakfast we read from Philippians and talked about some of the counter-cultural aspects of the gospel (a fascinating topic that my Philippians class addresses often, and one which I intend to write about here sometime before long). We did a little hiking before we came home, and then our weekend camping trip was over. It was short, but it is absolutely amazing to me how refreshing a night out of doors can be.
I have a few more pictures from the weekend posted here should you have an interest in seeing more.
