delara, interrupted

It's official. We are not pseudo-campers. We had a FABULOUS weekend in the wild, just the nine of us, and we really roughed it. A ragamuffin crew for sure. But oh, we had fun!

The drive up on Friday was lovely - a bit longer than anticipated simply because we left later than planned. Ah, well. The trees were dressed in full color - from the darkest aubergine to fiery orange to lime green to pale yellow. Amazing! Seeing the trees in mulit-hued clumps against the crystal blue cloudless sky as we drove with "Chimera" playing was just perfect. And as it got darker and the moon became visible, it was more perfect - the large, orange-yellow moon against a Prussian blue sky after sundown. A warm protective moon. Bliss.

We started a fire at camp once the tents were all up - set up by headlight - and grilled burgers, dogs and beans. But alas, the beans went bye-bye as we exploded a glass container by adding water once it was hot. Ooops. As Alanis said, you live you learn. Ha!

We awoke Saturday morning after sleeping in the cool fresh air to even more gorgeously fresh crisp air. Again, brilliant blue and everything washed in hazy yellow. Scrumptious. We feasted on a breakfast fit for royalty and went off on a 5+ mile hike on hilly terrain. Every now and again we would wander off the path into a thicket and just inhale the fresh pine smell. Moraines make for super hiking trails - good exercise!

After sandwiches for lunch, we napped, read, lounged, made s'mores (the first batch of MANY batches for the weekend) and generally chillaxed.

And then... the clouds started rolling in.

You would think, after 30+ years of experience, that we would naturally think, "clouds = rain pretty soon" but oh no - we were in denial.

As the wind picked up, it was pretty obvious it was going to rain. Nevertheless, we started the stew that was to be dinner.

And then... it poured. All at once. And we all got wet even though we scrambled to get our ponchos on. Those of us who brought one anyway. Tee hee.

And yet we kept cooking. At some point - perhaps when we all realized that we were drenched and cold - we decided to ditch the stew for the evening and instead we headed out to Moosejaw Restaurant. Can it get much more outdoorsy than that?!? After a delicioso meal, we slept. In the wet coldness. Man are we good!

And Sunday morning was even more bee-u-t-ful than Saturday, if that was possible. Clear, cloudless sky with warm streams of sunlight pushing through the trees. Another oh-so-lavish breakfast spread was followed by canoeing and packing up a bit.

Then we heated the stew for lunch - WOWSA! Yummo, as Charla Marla would say. And we packed up and drove back. But not before being besieged by flies for some reason.

A FABULOUS weekend, as I said. Many more details are floating around, but for now just know that we really enjoyed ourselves.