More on Camping

A couple of add-ons to Kelsee's camping post:

• As we were telling Haley about the cave we were going to explore, and as she often does when she doesn't want to do something, she animatedly listed the reasons she didn't want to go into the cave. One, bears, and two, popsicles. Huh? She clarified: it's really cold in a cave and they have ice. Oh. Icicles. Gotcha.
• In the lovely waterfall we played in, I movement caught my eye. A crawdad (crawfish, crayfish, whatever)! I was excited, as only dads can be when presented the opportunity to share with their child something new. I picked it (as you can see from the pictures in Kelsee's post). Haley had a guarded fascination with it. On our way home from our trip, we stopped once more to frolic in the cool stream of water. As we approached, Haley asked if the crab would be there. Kelsee corrected her. Crawdad, not crab. So Haley proceeded to ask me several times, as we played in the water, if the crabtree was there.
• I love camping. Really I do. Just a couple of things that bug me, pun intended: 1) That's right. Bugs. I have no problem with bugs in general. I love working in my yard, and often find my hands wrist deep in all sorts of creepy crawlies. And when we're camping, I don't mind bugs when I'm messing around the site, or even eating. But when I go to sleep, and I glance up to the top of the tent, illuminated in the lamplight, and I see ants and mosquitos and spiders and various other insects just waiting to share my sleeping bag with me... Yuck! I'm not afraid of them, I just find the thought of waking up to feel insects exploring my skin to be a rather unpleasant thought. 2) Speaking of sleep, why must the ground be so hard?!? We've tried an air matress, but this doesn't work well if both sleeping mates aren't the same size. Kelsee ended up plastered against me all night, and in the summer, that's the last thing you want. Plus, if you get a cheap mattress, it deflates as the night goes on, which means you are on the ground anyway. For the most part we use foam mattress pads. Three of them. On top we pile two sleeping bags and a comforter, before climbing on top of the pile ourselves and topping it off with a sheet. Still, I wake multiple times in the night and ask myself why I hate myself so much. 3) The key to dutch oven cooking is the right number of coals. We made mountain man breakfast, and the potatoes never got cooked, and the egg was less than solid. However, we made cobler and BBQ chicken one night and everything was phenomenal. I guess it's more of an art than a science. 4) Rain is our friend. Rain is our friend. Rain is our friend.
• Last thought on cameras. So we were relegated to using the camera on my cell phone because our digital camera has disappeared. On one hand, bummer. On the other, this gave me a chance to us my new camera phone. When I was reading the reviews on my phone (a Samsung Blackjack), some guy said it took better pictures than his digital camera. While that didn't play a factor in my getting the phone, I filed that tidbit away in my mental filing cabinet. Let me just say, that guy must have had a pretty crappy digital camera. As you can see from the pictures in the last few posts, they are hardly quality. And those were the best of the lot. Sheesh.