Camping

I had originally planned to take Nico camping in August as part of his birthday celebration.  But then Gran's Michigan travel plans changed so we spun the camping trip to October, which was actually better, since I *really* wanted to go in October.

One of the gym owners and his girlfriend (Dan and Kay) have started an adventure business, where they take people on various kinds of adventures and help them get introduced in a relatively safe environment to things like camping, rock climbing, hiking, etc.

I didn't have appropriate gear for myself.  I managed to get Nico a sleeping bag before we went, but ended up borrowing one whose owner said that she thought would not be warm enough.  I was taking my woobie (poncho liner that I stole from JJ) and thought I could layer on enough layers to not be cold.  That was false.  I froze my butt off on the first night- and didnt get much sleep.  Plus Nico peed in his bag- despite me waking him up in the middle of the night to go.  Which, in case you haven't had the pleasure, is horrible.  You have to put all of your stuff on and go out in the cold and do that and come back and get bundled up again.  Not fun.

Kay let me borrow an extra sleeping bag for the second night and it worked like a charm (in that I fell into the sleep of the dead).  It also wasn't as cold, so that helped.

We got to do some hiking and climbing on Saturday.  Turns out, that Nico is a wiz at rock climbing.



So much so, I think I am going to try to find some places to do rock climbing around here.

I didn't do any climbing, but mostly because I didn't like the angle my feet would have had to work with my ankles on the rock.  Also, I don't like 10 people watching me do things.  Anything.  So... I just spectated and cheered for Nico, who was a champ.  The climb involved a decent hike- with not trivial elevation.  It was a good reminder that weightlifting shape is not the same as running from zombies in the woods up a hill shape.  

It was a touch early for fall colors- it had been relatively warm when we got there.  But it was gorgeous.  Cool- so the bugs were not an issue.  It was really cool. 

We tried our hand at fishing on Sunday- which was a beat down.  Someone (whose name rhymes with Rico) cranked the reel on his fishing rod to tightly, so it caused the rod to get jacked up.  And when I tried to fix it, I busted the whole damn thing.  Since we were casting from the shore, we didn't get any bites.  The day we fished was over cast and grey.  Not like below.  

Despite using big juicy night crawlers, there were no bites.  It makes me nervous that I caught my Dad's fishing gene.  Which is unfortunately, since I used to fish like I belonged in the Hansen clan (that runs the Northwestern on The Deadliest Catch).  The good news is that there is a group that does fishing lessons here in the Chicago area.  Am hoping when our finances loosen up a bit, I might get a chance to go out there and do that.  I tried learning from a book.  I literally bought a book to learn how to fish.  I might as well be reading chinese: "When the rainbows go after the spinning charlies, make sure you hit them with the reds and the crawlers before the jimmies get in there." WHAT?  What is happening?

The trip was really fun- I learned how to start a fire and cook over an open fire (although, there were a couple of these there- turns out Mama really wants one!) Also, as if I needed any more things to be snobbish about, camping gear.  So far, the list stands at (in no order)

1) yarn

2) beer

3) stationary+pens

4) athletic gear

5) planners

6) quilting fabric

Where will it end?