Go camping more often.

Went car camping (ahem, see my other entry on that) this past weekend with a couple of friends at French Creek State Park in Elverson, Pennsylvania, USA. It was just an overnighter. My friends have only ever gone camping a couple of other times, so it’s all about the gentle break-in.

After getting our tents up, we collected some wood for our fire at night. Then the keys got locked in the car. Hehehe, well, at least I wasn’t the one that did it. But it was my car. We were just about to cook dinner when that happened, but all the food and supplies were stuck in the car. Dinner was delayed about 2 hours while we waited for some guy in a tow truck to drive to the campsite and use his special car unlocking kit to get us back in. I found it pretty interesting just how easy it was for him to get in the car with no apparent damage to the car. He shoved a little tool between the window and the main part of the doorframe near the locking mechanism, and in a minute or two he had it unlocked.

After dinner we started the fire and toasted some marshmallows for smores. Yum! We used extra dark chocolate for the smores which turned out really good. They weren’t as super-sweet as smores often are.

Our menu ended up as:

Dinner – 2 types of bean soup with ramen noodles, hot cocoa
Snack – s’mores: marshmallows, extra dark chocolate, graham crackers
Breakfast – oatmeal, pre-cooked bacon, hot cocoa, tea

After breaking camp, we went to Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, which is only a couple miles from the park. It’s a charcoal-fired iron furnace from the mid-1800s that is nicely preserved, along with some surrounding houses and other buildings. It was a perfect, sunny fall day for looking around the furnace site.

I enjoyed this car camping more than I expected. I think the tent sites were further apart than other campgrounds I’ve remembered, and it was also fairly wooded. This made it feel more private. Also, the other campers were pretty quiet too. And I must admit being able to sit on the picnic table was pretty comfy compared to my other adventures where I try to find a large log or rock. Sigh… I think I’m getting older. :)

I have a headlamp flashlight, sorta like what a coal miner would wear. It frees up both hands for doing stuff and makes it easy to do close-in work too since the light is right there on your head. Mine uses 2 AA batteries and has adjustable elastic straps that go around the head and even over the head. Its up-and-down pointing angle can be adjusted which is sometimes needed when switching from close-in work to walking around.

I’ve had it for years, and I like it so much that I sometimes use it when I need light for projects around the house.

Car camping or staying in a little gravel campsite
with RVs all around is ok. But it’s definitely
not my idea of real camping. By real camping I mean
camping-that-my-scoutmaster-would-be-proud-of.

Sleeping in tents (or sometimes under the stars) in the
woods, with nothing and noone else around. No radios or
other electronics. No cars to be heard anywhere.
The moon so bright you wonder why you never noticed
how bright it was before. A modest campfire at night with the
exquisite smell of a little wood smoke mixed
with crisp fall air. Food cooked simply on
a stove or the fire, and you wonder why it tastes so
much better out here than at home.
The drone of rain on your tent at night that somehow
makes it easier to fall asleep. Waking up in a nice
warm sleeping bag and seeing your breath in the tent.
The gentle trickling sounds of a nearby stream.
That 13 year-old boy who waits for everyone
to get quiet and about to fall asleep, and then
rips a really loud fart.

Those are some reasons why I want to do
more camping. Except for that 13 year-old. He was
annoying.