Our first camping trip of the season...our first camping trip of the past 10 years, actually. It was also the first sunny weekend since last summer...well maybe I exaggerate...but it was wonderful to see the sunlight filter down through the maple leaves. I had forgotten how good breakfast tastes when cooked on a camp stove and how soundly we sleep in our tent. I did think (for just a moment) that I heard a bear's stomach growling in the shrubs, but didn't want to get up to look. I had forgotten what a challenge it is to wake up at midnight and grope around for my flashlight and shoes and what a comforting sight the lights of the restrooms are through the trees beyond the dumpsters. We even had guests. Jim & Jean came down from White Rock, Canada, just over the border—we shared tea and shortbread, and Bob & Juanita joined us for dinner (Juanita brought an incredibly delicious soup, a gourmet touch to our hamburgers and Costco salads).
We had two days of quiet before the weekend...when all the campers, trailers, tents, kids, bicycles, radios, generators, and dogs arrived...and all worries of bears (or even squirrels, raccoons or wildlife of any kind) departed.
On Sunday, it took an hour or so to pack the car and be ready to leave. Bob reminded me that the plains Indians could break camp in 20 minutes...maybe next time.
