Camping with our Cville Friends

This past weekend George, Jude, and I went camping with some of our best friends here in Charlottesville. Jamie Smith planned it all and found the site (thanks!) so all we had to do was pack up and drive there. George hasn't been camping since he was a kid, so this was exciting for us. I LOVE to camp and have many fond memories of camping growing up. George has a hard time understanding my enthusiasm for outdoorsy things, but I was excited to share this experience with him.

The campsite is located just off Skyline Drive along the Shenandoah Valley. So beautiful! It took a little over an hour to get there from our house, but half of that was driving along the scenic Skyline Drive itself. Totally worth it!

While we were driving on Skyline, we saw a mama black bear and three cubs cross the road right in front of us! I scrambled to get the camera, but as soon as I pulled it out they had disappeared back into the forest. Darn! It was the first time I had seen bears that close before.

The campsites were first-come-first-serve, so the Smiths and the Simmons drove up before everyone else and staked a claim on two connected sites. Perfect! Rod and Calvin set to work getting the home-fires burning.

George had to work until 5, so we had a late start. We finally arrived and Jude took no time at all finding Bennett AND the most comfortable bed in the place.

We had rented our tent from UVa's outdoors club. It must have been pretty old (or we are just really bad at putting up tents) but it took us all a while to figure out how everything went together. Thanks for the help, Rod!

Hammering down the stakes.

it was a group effort, as you can see.

Trying to figure out how the rain fly attached. We got it, though, and soon enough we were sitting around the fire enjoying the company.

Lucy and Jude.

Jude thought it was all fantastic and spent most of the evening running around trying to explore.

Ahhh... nothing like a lung full of smoke to make you feel alive!

The Smiths

Jude and Bennett trying to sneak into the food.

Lance is in California with his dad, so he missed out. :( We'll have to go again soon.

Jamie was smart and brought some candy for the kids. Jude's newest obsession is lollipops which he'll beg for ALL DAY LONG. Seriously. It's the first thing he asks for when he wakes up.

The Vedomskes made it, too. Bennett, Cameron, and Jude were good buddies all night long.

Jude wanted to help set up the Vedomske's tent.

Calvin braving the smoke to cook our foil dinners. They turned out really well! Definitely satisfied the hunger that was raging.

After dinner, we broke out the s'mores!

Bennett liked the Reese's Jamie brought.

George was smart and made multiple s'mores so the kids could dive right in.

Jude thought they were pretty good.

Look at that messy face!

Father and son.

That marshmallow looks good, Jude.

I love his little tongue here. What a funny kid!

The Vedomskes.

Jude liked watching the bugs that would gather on our lantern.

Cameron thought they were pretty neat, too.

After s'mores, we cleaned off the kiddos and put them to bed. I brought a pack-n-play for Jude which worked well. What didn't work too well was the thin tent walls that allowed all the noise from the adult conversations to flow in. Jude kept calling out for me and checking to make sure I was there. He finally gave in and went to sleep.

While we sat around the fire talking, a mist came in and settled over everything. It honestly looked like a scene out of a horror movie. You couldn't see much past your tent and everything was hazy. A ranger came by to check on us and told us to make sure we packed up our food in the car because there had been bears in the campsites the past few days. Yay. We were VERY good about cleaning everything up on our way to bed and even stored our toothpaste in the car. Lucky for us, there were no bear sightings and we all made it safely through the night.

Camping as a group is fun, but interesting at the same time. You can hear everything that is going on and everything everyone is saying no matter what time it is. Throughout the night, Jude would wake up and look for me or George and I know he woke some people up. Sorry! Even though he was pretty tired, the light came in the tent and woke Jude up around 6:30 a.m. I tried really hard to keep him quiet so everyone else could sleep. We played with the flashlight for a bit. We watched some family video on my video camera. We looked at pictures. It worked for a bit.

George tried to sleep a little more.

I don't think it worked too well.

When we heard other people starting to stir, I figure we were okay to get up. Jude and I made a bathroom run and when we came out, there was a small group of deer walking past the building, not 10 feet away. George scooped Jude up and walked a little closer while Jude pointed and pointed.

We started breakfast which turned out really well! It was more of a potluck and everyone got bacon, breakfast burritos and french toast.

George, Rod, Calvin, and Sarah manning the breakfast station.

The kids were most excited about strawberries and pop tarts.

George and Calvin nursed a fire for us from the damp wood. Bacon grease helped a bit, too.

It was still super misty--like we were sitting in a cloud--so we ended up packing our tent and sleeping bags and everyone left for home around 10 a.m.

Jude loved driving with his window down and watching the trees fly past.

It was a great experience! George had a good time, too, and said he would love to go camping again. We drove home and had the arduous task of setting the tent back up in the sun to let it dry and then taking it down again. I think the clean-up at home is the hardest part about camping.

Later that day, after a good two-hour nap for all three of us, we drove up to Ashburn to see some of George's extended family, hang out with my family and pick up George's baritone saxophone. Talk about a whirlwind two days! It was a super busy weekend, but sooo fun! The only thing that would have made it better was Lance. We miss you, son!