Camping (Mis)Adventures

My cell phone appears to take delight in finding the shortest and most direct route to destinations. This is a great function in the city, but in rural parts of the state this often finds us in some curious places. This past weekend it told us to turn onto a single lane gravel road and to switchback for over 4 miles. The road hadn't been leveled in a long time and was riddled with potholes. Several times the Prius scraped the road and then gravel lodged itself in the brake. We screeched along until we found a place to pull over and get it out. Towards the end of our gravel adventure, we were surprised by a roadside waterfall and we took a break to admire it. Thankfully we didn't get stuck in deep mud!

The sun came back out when we arrived at the campsite, and our friends helped us set up our tent before we headed over to the communal campfire. We were delightfully out of cell phone reception and enjoyed the cool evening cooking around the campfire with our church friends. A handful whittled while others chatted. The children ran to and fro. Nathan even foraged some wild dandelions to cook up for the group to sample--a bit bitter/spicy for my liking, but edible.

Around midnight our tent sprang a few leaks--above and below. Nathan blissfully can sleep through anything, but Daisy was hopping up on my mat because her blanket was wet and it was starting to rain inside our tent. I woke Nathan up, and we re-arranged our stuff and were able to fit both of us (not short) people and the dog in the back of the Prius and lay down. Impressive cargo space for such a compact car!

After a restless night cooped up in the back of the Prius, we loaded up our soggy tent and headed home...or so we thought. We were following paper instructions and missed one of our turns in the rain, so we ended up about an hour out of our way into North Carolina! Oops! We eventually made it home to dry off and rest. It was quite the adventure for our first ever camping trip together. Hopefully we can explore more of Oconee County another drier weekend.