Fourth April Camping Trip

The weather was beautiful this weekend (temperatures in the 80's during the day, and the upper 50's at night) and I spent most of the day on Saturday lifting logs, running, and working out around the camping area (yes, that's my idea of relaxing!). In my previous post I mentioned there would be bugs, ticks, and mosquito's in a few weeks and that it was nice camping without them. Well I was wrong; they're already there! Within a few minutes of arriving, I found ticks crawling on me around the area where I camped last weekend, so I decided to just pick a random spot in the forest near the stream.

The night was so warm that I didn't even need a fire for heat, but I built one anyway (a camping ritual, or something). I pulled stones from the stream to build a small fire pit and used birch bark to start the fire. During the night I heard something moving around the leaves outside the tent and I kept getting up to look around with the flashlight. Finally I discovered a tiny frog was periodically jumping through the leaves making all the noise.

The weather didn't call for rain and the sky was clear when I went to sleep, so I assumed I wouldn't have to worry about rain. Stupid me. I've lived in New England long enough not to assume that. I woke up around 7AM to the sound of rain drops. The front of my tent was open, and a small puddle of water had already formed inside the tent. My pack, which also wasn't covered, got wet too. Oh well, it was still warm (50 degrees) so the water wasn't that uncomfortable. While it drizzled on and off, I started a fire just to see how difficult it would be while everything was soaked -- it was easy (birch bark is amazing, even in the rain!). After eating a breakfast of oatmeal, dried pineapple, a banana, and peppermint tea, I packed up and headed home.

I didn't take many pictures this time, but here are a few anyway.