Tuesday, May 23, 2006

A camping we will go...

Friday the Girl and I went on a camping trip with her Brownie troop. Me, about 12 other moms and 16 girls for two nights and two and a half days. In the wilderness. Ok, so it wasn't exactly roughing it as we stayed in a bunkhouse and had running water, but that was about the extent of the amenities.

My last camping experience was in college when I spent the summer as a Girl Scout camp counselor for like 8 weeks in Texas. Texas in the summer in a platform tent is not comfortable, but honestly I remember having a lot of fun once I adjusted to the heat. : )

Anyway, back to the Girl. She had a blast. We rode horses (yes, even me), the horse we rode was a flea bitten gray mare named Prize. Prize liked to nibble on every green thing it could find, so she was a little hard to keep focused on our trail ride.

We also went on a nature hike, tye-died t-shirts, roasted hotdogs on a campfire, sang songs, played games, swam and went paddle boating. When we were out on the lake in the paddle boat the Girl discovered a fish hooked on a fishing line someone had hung from a tree. The fish still was in the water but you could tell it wouldn't survive if we didn't do something. So the Girl made us paddle over there and I let the fish go. She was so pleased!

While we were gone Hubby and the Boy had a boy's weekend at home. Movies on Friday night, library and lunch on Saturday and staying up until unGodly hours both nights. When we got home Sunday the Boy rushed out to the car and didn't even let the girl get out before he pounced on her for a hug. It was really sweet.

I was exhausted from the trip. Horses--who knew they were so broad? I consider myself pretty flexible for my girth, but when you first get on a horse you wonder if your thighs are really supposed to spread that far apart. I adjusted. And hiking, damn we walked a lot. From the parking lot to our campsite was at least a mile and wherever you went after that was at least half a mile away. Granted, for my friend the Marathon Man this would have been nothing, but for someone who rides the elevator to the second floor after going outside for a smoke, it was a challenge : ) I survived though and the Girl and I had a great time together. I hope this is a memory she'll always treasure.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Speaking for your friend the Marathon Man (as I assume I AM the friend refer to as Marathon Man, I can tell you that me and horses are an uncomfortable match. I was taking fence jumping lessons for some ungodly, peer-pressured reason and, ahem, the Little Marathon Men didn't like it so much. So for the next lesson I put on not ONE but TWO pairs of Depends diapers to add a little cushioning. Of course, when a friend mentioned ya couldn't even TELL I was wearing a couple of pairs of diapers, I realized I wasn't cut out to be a horseman AND I have a fat ass.