This weekend was definitely a new experience for me. Tara and I went camping with Paul and his family to Hyalite Reservoir, a campground near their house. When we first arrived, Paul and his family had not been there very long, so we helped them set up camp and get settled in. After setting up tents and unrolling sleeping bags, another family that is friends with the Mineaus arrived at the campsite right beside of ours. Denise and Tyson (parents of this other family) had two of the cutest kids I'd seen in a long time: Cooper, 4 and Reagan, 2. They were quite entertaining to play with. After a bit, a previous intern, Rachael, and her boyfriend stopped by for dinner. Erica (Paul's wife) made ribs, and cornbread, Rachael brought corn on the cob, and Denise made delicious cheesey potatoes--definitely some gourmet camping here. In the midst of all of the excitement, there was some rain and it got really cold--something that this Virginia girl is not used to, especially at the end of June. After everyone had visted for a while after dinner, Rachael and her boyfriend left, and so the rest of the campers stayed up. Tara and Paul taught me a new game called Cribbage. It is the coolest game ever--I am excited to play with my family and friends at home!
Tara and I woke up on Saturday after quite the cold night in the tent and began cooking breakfast for the crew (that was our assigned job). Since we knew that Erica was a dutch oven guru, we decided to make monkey bread in the dutch oven and then cook omelettes in a bag. Both of these turned out way better than we ever could have imagined! It was all delicious! Once breakfast was cleaned up, Erica, Ashley, Tara, and I headed out to go for a hike up to Emerald lake. Tara and I ended up ahead of Erica and Ashley. We stopped to wait for them at a tough part of the trail, so that we could give them a hand. After waiting for about 20 minutes, a group passed us and one of its members asked us if we were Tara and Rachel. We said that we were and she told us that she had talked to our friends who said for us to go ahead because they were heading back. Tara and I then made friends with this group and followed them the rest of the way to the lake. After trudging through lots of snow and jumping over a creek (poor Tara fell in), we made it up to the lake. It was absolutely gorgeous!
We decided to head back down pretty quickly, because we needed to get back to the campsite before it got too late. We decided to try to avoid all of the snow on the way down, so we took a different route. Bad idea. After about an hour of wandering we finally made it back to the trail and then back to the parking lot. When we got to the parking lot, Erica and Ashley had left a note on the hood of Tara's car in small pebbles that said "we went back.". It made us laugh and we took a picture with it.
Once we got back to camp, I crashed in the tent for about 2 hours while Tara read her book and Paul and Erica got dinner together. Ashley woke me up by crowing like a rooster. Erica continued to impress me with her camp cooking--she made bananas foster over yellow cake! It was delicious! After dinner, we played some more Cribbage, hung out by the fire, and then headed to bed.
We all slept in this morning--marvelous! We packed up camp and headed home. It felt so good to take a shower when we got back. Tara and I did a bunch of laundry and ate dinner with Michael, Eric, and Tara's boyfriend (who is visiting). It has been a pretty relaxing Sunday afternoon.
This week will be a big week at work. We have our FSA meeting on Tuesday and then we have to make up for all the work that we will miss on Friday because Paul is letting us have it off as a holiday for the 4th of July. My brother is also coming to visit this weekend--so I have a lot to look forward to with him! I can't wait for a taste of home!!
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