Our camping trip was great. We spent a good part of Friday packing and preparing for it, so we didn't leave the apartment until about 5:00 pm. We made one last stop at Walmart for supplies and headed for the low gap trail in Morgan Monroe State Forest, about a 15 minute drive away. We parked the car at a little trailside parking lot and began loading ourselves down with the ridiculous amount of gear we brought for our one night backpacking trip. Amy had Samuel, among other things, in the pigpack for a total of 38 pounds on her little body - the most weight she had ever carried by at least eight pounds. I had the pleasure of hauling Samuel's new pack'n play, in addition to our tent, most of the food, water, clothes, etc - an absurd 90 pounds of gear. Samuel, Gamba, and Lutalo all got away with carrying nothing!We finally hit the trail a few minutes behind a group of teenage boys and their dads who geared up and left from the same parking lot. The whole forest is coming in green right now so it is very pretty and made for very nice hiking. From where we parked, it was only a mile and a half or two miles to the area we scoped out last weekend. The hike went by pretty quickly and we were looking for a campsite before 7:00 pm. We found a small clearing alongside the major stream that runs through that part of the forest, a couple hundred feet from the trail and complete with a stone fire ring built by previous campers. We decided that would be our site. The dogs showed their support for the decision by playing nicely in the area while we set up the pack'n play for Sam. He started Saming it up as soon as we put him in it, barking out commands and encouragement from underneath his bug net as we turned to the task of setting up our new tent ($31.00 at Walmart - and a fine product). We considered making a fire but all the wood Amy could find was damp. It was also getting dark and we were hungry, so I got out the camp stove and started cooking dinner while Amy tended to Samuel in the tent - who was now crying because he was cold and unsure of his surroundings. Gamba and Lutalo "helped" me with dinner. They were in their element and totally content with hanging around to show their interest in borrowing some space in the tent for the night. We ate our dinner of beef soup mix with Salmon and ramen noodles, and the dogs gladly finished off the pot - their birthday dinner, we will say. Amy put Samuel to bed while I cleaned out our dishes and hung our food and trash bags from a branch over the stream. Then we went to bed ourselves. Forty something degrees out, one sleeping bag, a couple of sheets and two thin sleeping pads, along with a nine month old and two nervous dogs (always paranoid there won't be room for them or they might be kicked out of the tent unexpectedly and without explanation), it was not the night of sleep we had hoped for. Samuel woke up four times and needed a bottle warmed up with the camp stove at 2:00 am (see picture).
We got up for good at around 7:00 am, still really tired but excited about the day ahead. I started working on a camp fire while Amy changed and fed Samuel. Then Amy cooked us oatmeal with fruit in it for breakfast. After breakfast we waded down the stream and explored. The dogs had a blast splashing through the water and climbing up the banks. Gamba played fetch in the freezing cold water and Lutalo displayed his incredible bravery walking across every l-o-o-ng log bridge in sight. Amy and I gave ourselves "mud facials", in lieu of Amy using normal facewash stuff. I don't usually do face washing type things but she says the clay we used did an awesome job. Samuel pretty much just took it all in, mesmorized by the beauty and stimulation that surrounded us.
Later in the morning we went back to our camp site and rigged up the pigpack for a light hike. We headed for Bear lake about three miles from our camp site. We had driven there before and hiked from there, so it was neat to hike to it from a totally different point of origin, and a different forest (Bear lake is in Yellowood State Forest). The hike was alot of fun, though we were both feeling the lack of sleep. We found Amy a stick suitable for use as the walking stick she had been wanting. When we got to Bear lake we sat for a while and rested before heading back for our camp site. When we got back the dogs were exhausted. They always move so much farther than we do on hikes, because they constantly Lu and Roo off the trail to investigate and chase various things. Before we even started making lunch, they were flattened out sleeping in the warm afternoon sun. Amy had some ramen for lunch and I had tuna fish. Samuel took a short nap and then woke up fussy. I worked on carving out Amy's walking stick while she took care of Samuel and started taking down our camp. By the time we were all cleaned up and ready to leave it was around 7:00 pm. When we were almost back to the car a tiny little lap dog met us on the trail and went berserk on Gamba and Lutalo. The owner was apologetic but should have restrained his dog more quickly than he did. In the end it was just alot of show, neither of our dogs were bitten and they showed remarkable restraint toward a much smaller dog. We are very proud of them. We were tired and Samuel was fussy, but he proved to be a tough little infant on his first camping trip.
