The Great Camping Experiment-continued

We had a good night camping in the backyard. They were calling for a very hot day. But by the time we got out to the tent, it was comfortable. We had our little fan going. The air mattress was just right. So off to sleep we went. Around 3am I heard a little scratching noise at the backside of the tent. I said, "What's that?". Hunter mumbled, "I don't know". Silence followed and then I heard it again. "What's that?", I asked again. Hunter mumbled, "I don't know". Then I heard a faint "Meow". It was our cat, Sassy (short for Sassafras). She's is our night patrol. She is out all night and sleeps all day. I think she was highly confused as to why the folks were sleeping in this contraption outside. But she joined us for awhile and then went back on patrol.

We woke up about 8:30am. It was already starting to get hot. So I grabbed a little more sleep indoors. Overall, not a bad experience. I think I can do it for 1 or 2 nights at a time. We left the tent up. But sometime this evening one of the supporting rods snapped. So, it looks like we will be taking the tent back for a replacement.

It occurs to me that I should do a little tribute to our kitty. She gives us so much joy. Hunter had always been a dog person before we got married. So he sort of "adopted" Sassy. It was a little rough in the beginning, but he loves her so much. They have their morning ritual and their favorite pastime is Hop on Pop where they snuggle up together in his La-Z-Boy recliner.

Not sure about our future camping excursions at this point. To be continued...

The Great Camping Experiment

Last weekend we invested in some camping basics. A tent, an air mattress, a lantern and a fan. Our intention yesterday was to spend the night under the stars since it was a pretty mild day temperature wise. Well first, we decided to do a 3 mile run since the Firecracker 5K is coming up. That went pretty well. Then my task was to cook dinner while Hunter baited his crab pots. By that time it was 8 o'clock. He started putting up the tent as I grilled and got dinner ready. It took about an hour to get the thing up. We decided to break for dinner at 9pm. We still hadn't inflated the air mattress, and there was no way I was sleeping on that hard ground. Needless to say, we both fell asleep indoors after dinner. So we inflated the mattress this morning with the plan to sleep in the tent tonight. To be continued...

Loving Summertime

Summer is progressing quickly as usual. The annual 4th of July extravaganza weekend will be here in less than 2 weeks. Looks like we're going to do the 5K race again this year. We haven't been training as much as last year. But we did 2 miles tonight with positive results.


Oh and we have decided to try camping. We bought a tent and air mattress this weekend. We are going to try it out one of the next few weekends. We have our eye out for a Virginia Beach weekend. Hunter has never done any camping. We used to go once or twice a year when I was growing up and I also did a couple of years at the local Girl Scout Camp. I was telling Hunter stories about camping this weekend. I got laughing because they all seem to end with me saying, "And I was so miserable, I slept in the car"!! What am I thinking??

The Year of Giving-Save the Stack

Paris has the Eiffel Tower. London has Big Ben. New York has the Statue of Liberty. My hometown has "The Stack".

It's hard to describe where I grew up. Well, I never had any trouble until I left and went to college. Being from small town Virginia, people in New Orleans would ask, "Where are you from?". I would always just say Virginia and no one would ever ask anything else.

My brother has the best explanation for where our town is. He says it's where the Potomac River meets the Chesapeake Bay. He tried this on a Navy Admiral one time in Hong Kong. The Admiral surmised from that description that he was from the Eastern Shore. My brother just smiled and nodded. Who was he to correct an Admiral?

The truth of it is, I am from Reedville, Virginia. You can Google it and get an idea what I mean. It is a place I loved as a child, was bitter about when I was a teenager and now think is one of the greatest places on earth.

Reedville when I was growing up, was essentially a fishing village. My family's income, like so many others, came from commercial fishing, crabbing or oystering (or all three). When I was a kid the creeks were full of remnants of the old fishing factories of the early 1900's. There were old docks and abandoned wooden boats. Those were mostly cleaned up in the 1970s. The one thing that remains from that era is "the Stack".

The Stack is 130-foot-tall and is in bad shape. There is a $250,000 campaign to save it. It has a 4-degree lean which needs to be addressed before any restoration can be done. The stack doesn't serve a purpose today, it just stands as a symbol of a time gone by and a time that is going to come to an end one of these days. That is why I am contrbuting to "Save the Stack".

Peanut Butter and Bananas

Please visit my friend's blog "Peanut Butter and Bananas". She just started her blog a couple of weeks ago. She has lots of great tips on eating healthy along with anecdotes about everyday life. I have known this young lady since she was born. I used to babysit her and her sister. She has a fantastic outlook on life and I'm so glad to have her as a blogging buddy!