Camping - Another Perspective

If you've had a chance to read Phil's blog entry, you know we went camping for the past three days. "Neither night was cold enough to be bothersome..." This said by the man who wears shorts in winter in the snow. The first night because it had rained it was definitely chilly. Fortunately we had good sleeping bags. A group of children were outside the tent during the rain chanting "Rain stop. Rain stop." They also were singing a song to the tune of "Are you sleeping?" that went like this "I hear thunder, I hear thunder, hah don't you, hah don't you, pitter patter rain drops, pitter patter rain drops, I'm soaked through, so are you." (Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Brother John, Brother John, morning bells are ringing, morning bells are ringing, ding ding dong, ding ding dong) Now, imagine it sung with an English accent. Very cute.

"Amanda was wearing out, and the girl was being stubborn." Mainly Lady Jane was being stubborn which was making it hard to keep going. I packed too much in my pack. Phil had a bit of an unreasonable expectation of how far we could go each hour. He based it on the amount of time it took us unburdened across Castleton. Oh, well, I would have continued on. Phil made the executive decision based off his frustration with the girl.

While he trekked up a mountain, I sat in the sun and watched the kids play with a couple of kids that were back early as well. They ran around for quite some time. Eventually we went to get ice cream at the little store when it opened for the evening. Phil had said he would be back by 6 and to worry if he wasn't. He made it back at 5:59. I would have given him 15 minutes. Though we may not have made it much past six with all the food locked in the car and Phil with the keys. We did alright eating food cooked on the fire. Phil's a good cook.

I think we all would go camping again. I think backpacking camping is out for a while. Maybe after a few years, we could build up to it. But Lady Jane is still too young. We're still good for walks in the moors though and some short hikes.

I've spent most of today planning a trip to Scotland for when my in-laws come over and planning a trip to Ireland for after they are gone. I need a Rand McNally store to find some cool maps and other books. I have plenty of books on Ireland, but I need a decent map to physically hold. Besides Phil has an obsession for maps that rivals mine for books. I don't get his obsession but he doesn't get mine either. I'm looking forward to Phil's trip home for the fact that he can pick me up things from the store that I can't get here and take back some things that we really don't need here. I need to pack his extra suitcase for him some time this week.