Camping in Pensacola

Last weekend Chris took me on our annual camping trip. It's a strange thing going camping in the middle of October, but the weather couldn't have been more perfect. The site we camped on was actually where a house once stood on the banks of this river, but then when Hurricane Ivan came through it destroyed the house. All that's left is a foundation and the docks out on the water. The land belongs to a friend of a guy that works with Chris. They said its a great place to camp so we took them up on their offer to let us use the land.

When we got there the first thing we did was go take a look at the water to see if it was swimable. It was swimable... if you didn't mind getting your feet snapped off by an alligator. Well... I'm sure it wasn't that bad, but the water was jet black, and there was no way I could muster the courage to just jump in. So that was a little disappointing, but we still made the most out of our camping trip.

Chris and I set up camp and while he got the fire going, I prepared our tin foil dinners of baby red potatoes and salmon. It was delicious. We stayed up late that night, talked, made s'mores, and listened to the sounds of the wildlife around us. It was so loud. Raccoons getting into fights, something getting in the water and making splashing noises (an Alligator?), ducks quacking, and fishes jumping out of the water. Somehow, we slept good that night, huddled up in our sleeping bags, and managed to even sleep in till about 9:30. That's amazing, because when I camp I am usually up at the crack of dawn.

The next day my brother and his family came up to spend the day with us. It was hot that day so we tried to stay as far away from the fire as possible and just stared at the water that we couldn't get into. It was torture to be so close to water and not be able to get in. But we made our own fun. We played a couple rounds of this dice game called Toss Up, and then even brought our inner kids out and played a few games of hide and seek. So much fun! I must say that I am an amazing hider.

Then as night slowly started to fall we prepared another delicious tin foil dinner (Chris and I seriously have a talent for tin foil dinners) and sat around the campfire talking about ghosts. The scenery was fitting, the Spanish moss hung from the nearby oak trees creating a good backdrop for such a discussion.

Twinkee, our little camper, she hated all but about 10 minutes of the whole trip. She does not enjoy roughing it.

A lot of the animal noise we were hearing was coming from this area. This is all that's left of the dock the hurricane took.

It was a fun time, but I always look forward to getting back home and taking an actual shower and sleeping in my bed.

*** Something I forgot to mention... Chris and I got attacked by bugs. When I say attacked, I mean even bug repellent couldn't keep them at bay. We didn't realize how severe the damage was until we got back home. I fortunately wore pants the majority of the time, but Chris wore shorts and got the worst. He counted over 100 bites on his legs alone. I felt so bad for him. The itch was so irritating. I never want to experience that again and I couldn't even imagine how he was feeling.