{easter camp trip}

{our little group}

This post is a little overdue…but ahh, here it is J

To celebrate this Easter we headed up to Lake Hartwell, SC with our family and friends for a mini camp trip. Jesse and I haven’t gone camping in over a year so this was a real treat for us. Usually we really rough it, but our friends introduced us to a new form of camping---glamping. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is basically just fancy camping. No long hikes into a campsite in the middle of nowhere, no digging holes for, well you know…, no hanging food in trees in order to avoid attracting unwanted visitors. No this camp trip was like a mini-vacation---we were really spoiled. The bathrooms (with showers) were only a few steps away, we had electricity and running water at our site, and our friends had an oven, yes an oven!, in which we cooked most of our meals very efficiently. It was quite relaxing and allowed us to spend less time on the menial tasks and more time enjoying each other’s company---which is really what you want to do on Easter weekend. I don’t know if Jesse and I will camp like this very often (afterall we do like the solitude that those rustic campsites provide), but I think we will definitely try it again! This was also my parent’s first camping trip (which they were very excited about), so glamping was definitely the ideal way to introduce them to the wilderness…haha.

{the pups packed up and ready to go}

We arrived Friday night and stayed until Sunday morning. Friday was pretty laid back as we just got everything set-up and made dinner. Saturday was more of an active day. We woke up bright and early (7 am early…ack!), started a nice fire, and cooked up some breakfast burritos. After we filled our bellies, we parted ways to enjoy a few different activities. Some of our group went to check-out the Easter egg hunt hosted by the park, while a couple others went fishing. Dad Ellis and I went on a 7 1/2 mile bike ride around Tugaloo State Park (where we were staying) to check out our surroundings and burn off those breakfast calories.

{sasha waking up jesse…he wasn’t too happy about that}

{haha}

{the morning crew}

{starting a fire}

{gentlemen}

{lubs}

{my pops and me}

We all met up around lunchtime and shared our adventures from the day. Afterwards, I took a little siesta in Jesse’s hammock whilst listening to some Eric Hutchinson (I did get up at 7 am afterall). Jesse, his brother, my parent’s, and our friends headed back over to the lake for a little walk. Dad Ellis took in some sunshine while reading his daily paper. Such a perfect afternoon.

{soaking in my vitamin d}

{my hubs}

{comfy?}

{gathered catepillars; anyone know what kind they are?}

Dinner on Saturday was untra delicious. We made thanksgiving foil packets---herb roasted turkey breast, stuffing, & gravy. We had fire roasted corn and cranberry sauce on the side---yum-my! For dessert, our friend Mark made a blackforest cobbler in his dutch oven. It was incredibly good! That night we gathered around the fire, roasted a few marshmallows, and shared stories. No scary ones unfortunately---maybe next time.

{sooo good}

{jesse with hus super cool swedish torch}

{take 1}

{take 2…much better}

{now that’s a fire!}

Sunday was pretty easy. We had a very nice breakfast and cleaned up our campsite. We didn’t leave before going on one last adventure however. Have you ever heard of geocaching? It’s kind of like treasure hunting. There are geocaches hidden all over…even in large cities, and you have to follow map coordinates or clues to find them. There is also a really cool app that shows you the gps location. Once you find the geocache, you can take the treasure you find (left by the previous discoverer) as long as you replace it with something. That way the geocache stays active. We figured out there was one close to our campsite so we decided to go and check it out. We had to hike up a hill, and search around a bit, until finally we found it casually hidden under a pile of logs. It was very exciting to pry open the box and see what treasures were hidden inside (which surprisingly there were several). We even got to log our names into a little book to document we had found it. We followed the rules and left our own treasure behind---a cracker challenge…hehe.

{on our way to the geocache…it was so nice out}

{the hike up}

{the pups were excited}

{we found it!}

{official rules}

{so many treasures, so hard to choose}

{the log book}

{our geocache contribution}

{the cracker challenge}

{returning the geocache}

{our reward}

What a lovely camp trip. We had such a great time with such wonderful company. I can’t wait until our next camping adventure! Maybe we will do more geocaching.

So long for now,

The Mrs.