Camping

So as I continue to get caught up on the things we have done since we were married, I will do a post on our camping trip. Its raining outside... incredibly cold, and there is snow on the mountains around Santa Rosa. Last week it was 70 degrees! Hah... spring was here, it seemed and now we are back to winter. Break out the hot chocolate, heater and snow clothes. 

Anyway... back to the camping trip. Jordan and I had been talking about camping long before we were married. It was on our 'List'. Oh boy that list was long. And gets longer. :) However, its always fun to dream. Ok, back to camping, again. I am obviously easily sidetracked. We set out down the coast towards Monterey. It was a beautiful weekend and we had maps to several different campgrounds with the idea to sorta 'wing it'. Well... winging it didn't go all that great for us. We found a few of the campgrounds in the Santa Cruz area and despite our idea to do a beach camping trip, somehow ended up in the Redwoods of the Santa Cruz mountains at Big Basin. 

It was the perfect weekend for it. It was warm and pleasant to be outside. We got to Big Basin after a long day of exploring and dead ends and set up our camp. We set up our new camp stove, our borrowed tent, our new mattress and lovely REI double sleeping bag, our chairs, our tablecloths and our SPICY chili dinner. Haha... I recommend that no one use Chipoltle chili in large quantities and expect the meal to be edible. Jordan sat at the table for a looooong time eating that Chili. Poor Jordan. And then there was the potato incident. A camping story always has its list of do's and don'ts that come from it. One of our don'ts was this: When you put your potatoes in the fire to roast and when they aren't done for dinner and you decide to let them cook and have them for breakfast and then  when they are not done when you go to bed, DONT leave them there. Take them out and put them away so that when you wake up in the morning and hear the birds divebombing your camp, at least it won't be for the lovely little potatoes sitting in your fire. We did this. I even remember looking at the potatoes in the fire before we went to bed and saying, "Look at the little potatoes... awww. " Only to wake up to the birds divebombing them and pulling them out of the fire pit. We still had two potatoes for breakfast, and at least its a story... but not something I would do again. 

So then the next day we went hiking. We went on a beautiful long hike (11 or 12 miles) on the Skyline to the Sea trail. We saw lots of banana slugs and were welcomed by falling acorns. But it was beautiful and fun. 

When we got back, the camp had moved out. I think we were one of like three campsites filled in our campround. It was a Sunday night so we had the camp to ourselves... which sounds great but there is one reason it is definitely not. Raccoons. We had heard that they had been terrorizing our campground the night before but we never saw them ourselves, but by the end of Sunday night we had had our fill. They plagued us all night... while we were cooking dinner, eating dinner, reading later by the fire. They were on the table in Jordans cup, next to me while I was reading by the fire, all over our camp site. Jordan chased them up trees and, I think, fully enjoyed the fact that he could scan around with the flashlight and know he would find them creeping up on us.

Jordan Raccoon Scanning. :) 

So, the next morning we packed up and got ready to head out, with plans to stop and see Santa Cruz on our way out. We got in the car... and it was dead. After a long search, we finally found someone with jumper cables and we were on our way. Just another don't for your trip: Don't leave the back of the car open for a long time when your car battery goes dead easily. :) 

Anyway, then we went to SC. I called my mom to find out where the boardwalk was. She said she didn't really know exactly where, but it was, "Easy... just go west when you get to Santa Cruz." So we went West. Well... we went what we thought was west because the car told us it was West. We were not familiar with the area and by the time we had jumbled ourselves up completely, we had no idea where we were, but it definitely didn't feel like West. So finally we determined that it wasn't and the car must be wrong so we went 'East' on the car compass and got to the boardwalk. Aparently the compass had been reset in the battery problem. Huh. Anyway... Then I got sick. And that was the end of the lovely trip for me. :) But it was still a lovely trip.