Sunday, August 18, 2013

Road warrior

This is going to be a composite camping blog. Actually, nothing much happens when we're camping, so, it takes a few weeks to gather up some photos and stories before posting! I'm not complaining, perhaps even bragging!  Last weekend, Paulie and I decided to try our first overnight together at the campsite. I should have known that it would be as fun as any other adventure with my BFF.

We headed out on Saturday around 4pm, stopping first at the grocery store to stock up on dinner, breakfast and lunch fixings. Not having even left the parking lot, we remembered that we had no dog food for the pups! Back to home base we went and head forth again toward Nina. Feeling quite adventurous, we were quickly upstaged by Nick. (see photo above).  Nick camped in a tiny, tiny tent next to us. Curious, we asked where he was going and where he had been, and what on earth was he doing in Bellevue, Ohio? Alone, on a bike? (you can't see the tent, but, trust me, it was packed on the bike somewhere).

Turns out Nick worked for Lucas Films in San Francisco and was unhappy being cooped up inside on nice days, so he decided to hit the road on June 12 and go to NYC. So, we met him at mile 2,400! Taking our trusty iPhone calculator, we estimated he has averaged 40 miles per day thus far. He estimated he had 10 days to go until NYC. He was going to detour to Cedar Point to ride a few coasters with a woman he met in Yellowstone and who lives in Cleveland.

This is our first ever fire. I don't think we could have been more proud! We toasted s'mores and ended up with more mosquito bites than anyone should ever have to endure. We also conquered the Weber and made veggie hotdogs! Wow. What a night!!!!


This weekend, Ron and I headed back to Nina with all three pups.   "Our" pond had geese tooling around and Kate forgot she wasn't a bird dog! She headed for the water as if she were one of the poodles!


The campground is surprisingly quiet. Even though there are quite a few tents, campers, and so forth, it is quiet enough to sleep in until 9am! The sound of trains are in the distance, and there is a slight hum of trucks. No boom box thumping from cars, no sirens, no helicopters and no barking dogs as is the norm in our city neighborhood. Oh, we can hear Flick (below) making goat noises....actually, he sounds like a sheep to me! Baaaaaaa. ?????



This is our favorite view from Nina. I know most people think of camping scenery as being in the woods, but, frankly, both of us are totally enamoured with the view of farms. The soybean fields in the foreground have grown from ankle height to waist height thus far. And to think, we haven't ventured further than 15 miles from our house in Sandusky. It seems like a million....just what the change of scenery and pace is meant to be! Stay tuned, we just might venture beyond Gotta GettaWay one of these days.