The Happy Camper

So, I'm sure you're all dying to hear about my wonderfully exciting weekend, right?
Well then, I'll tell you all about it.
It all started about a month ago when my mom was telling me her plans for Malcolm's birthday present. She told me that she would like to take him to Nashville to see the Parthenon and take his little brother too. No complaints here.
When I got back home that evening, I told Forest the good news: A weekend alone!!
Now, we do get to spend time alone together on a very regular basis on account of mom wanting to spend her Saturday night's and Sunday morning's with the boys. But a whole weekend, Friday night to Sunday afternoon, with no children just doesn't happen very often.
Well, we are not travel stay in a hotel kind of people, but we know we wanted to go away together.
What to do?---Camping!!
Not scary, backwoods, no facilities camping. But State Park, nice clean bathrooms camping.
On Friday night, we went grocery shopping, packed up the Explorer, and got a good night's sleep. We slept in on Saturday, then got going, only making one stop for ice on the way. Off to our favorite camping spot in Manchester, TN to Old Stone Fort Park.
Not a bad drive, just 45 miles of scenic views. It was about 4:30 in the afternoon when we got there, lots of sunlight still.
We drove right to the campsite, secretly hoping that it would be mostly empty due to it being Easter weekend. We were just sure that we'd get that perfect campsite right by the showers and bathrooms. And maybe we would have, but in February, all the pipes to the showers froze and busted. That entire area was roped off, no one aloud.
Luckily, there is another bathroom, so we went there. But no showers.
That's when I noticed them, 5 BIG campers all parked really close together with lots of ill behaved little kids running around. But that was ok, they were down farther from the bathrooms so I figured we'd be just fine. So I picked out the perfect site right in front of the bathroom. Just perfect. We parked and started unpacking. Well, Forest unpacked. I sat around and looked cute.
We got everything set up and just sat and talked. Nothing deep or important, just talked.
6:30pm rolled around and the man decided it was time to start lighting fires. Had to light the fire pit and the charcoal-- we had yummy steaks thank to mom!
Charcoal lit without a hitch. The fire starter in the fire pit under the perfectly seasoned logs burst into beautiful flames. Eating supper by the burning starter log, waiting for logs to catch. Still waiting. Waiting some more. That's when I got upset thinking that not only was I fixin to be cold all night, but that I might not get my S'Mores!!!!
Well, being the fix it man that he is, Forest quickly threw another starter log in and furiously poked at the logs trying to coerce them to light. Two year old, well seasoned, dry logs that would not burn. The paper towel thrown in on a whim wouldn't ignite. I was not amused. It did smoke a lot. I think that's we we started laughing.
 Ha ha- we lit a smoker, not a fire. Ha ha- have to climb into the tent and get under the sleeping bags to stay warm. Haha. Oh and there are lights next to the bathroom that stay on all night long. And the quintuplet-redneck-big campers put up the twinkle lights, rope lights, and way too loud radios. Haha. (I will admit that I had twinkle light envy. But stringing them up ALL over 5 campsites with loud screaming kids was a bit too much.)
Oh, and double ha, it was way colder than we thought it would be and I froze all night long (the fire still wasn't going). So I laid on the air mattress, next to Forest, under a pile of blankets staring at the twinkling lights of our neighbors and counting the number times the oh so close toilets flushed.
I nodded off a few times but was still awake when the sun started to come up.
I quietly snuck out of the tent and climbed onto the picnic table and watched the sunrise.
Yes, I missed Easter at church today. But I had the opportunity to be outside in God's beautiful world, appreciating it in it's full glory, reflecting on what salvation means to me.
And then I went back to my beloved and fell sound asleep in his arms.
What a perfect trip.

And I did get my S'Mores!