wilderness

early June I went on a wonderful camping trip with GK, E and M. I have wanted to go camping for years- growing up in the north camping was pretty usual and we probably went most summers as a family- but when you live in the big city and no one has a car, and big city kids are afraid of the woods, or dirt, or bears you don't get out much.
I have to say, I only realized how completely unprepared I was for this when we started preparing. when you live with your parents of course you have tents and coolers and bug spray! meanwhile I had nothing but the clothes. thanks to the generous support of my brother, my friends brothers, neighbours and friends my gear was pieced together.
we blasted out of town on a friday afternoon and after some last minute food and beer shopping we were on our way east. even though we were still in the lower mainland, it took a few hours to get there. the site we were headed for turned out to be full as we arrived about 9:10pm. this could have been disaster, but there was another site about 30kms up the road.... and we are so glad we went the extra distance! it was like having our own site all to ourselves as I think only 3 or 4 sites were being used out of 48.
E + M cooked up feasts and made morning ceasers to perfection! talking around the camp fire, playing our ipods, playing all-terrain bocce, drinking weird beer, going to bed late, sleeping in, fresh air, good laughs, getting away from it all.
the last night we were sitting around the campfire at about 1am when a huge adult deer wandered into the edge of our camp site! it hung out there just out of sight for a while just listening to us. on the drive home we also encountered a huge bear lumbering down the centre of the dirt road! it was so much fun.