This One Time, At Band Camp

So we went camping a while back (real camping, no instruments involved whatsoever), 'bout a week before I left for Tech I want to say. Yes, it was fun and yes I want to do it again. But... I think it'll be a tad too cold during my winter break ^^;

As I mentioned earlier--or at least I think I did--the whole idea started while I was over in Puerto Rico. Kish, James, Cathryn, Vince, and Ted all decided to go camping at Bull Run (a nice place around 30 minutes from my house that I have both camped at and ran a cross country race at) one day. So they went. I heard about this when I returned and immediately said, "We need to go again!" Of course, Kish reminded me that I had not gone the first time, but he agreed, we would go camping before we left for college. And this time we'd try to invite more people to the crazy party.

In the end the three of us, throw John in the mix, decided upon a day to go and began calling people. Who'd we invite? Same people we always do... proceed to the Europe Contact List!!! Like I said in a previous post--and I know that I did this time--this was the list I created from the many numbers and e-mails and sn's, etc, etc, that I received on the plane trip back from Germany. Every time that we had those little "reunions" we relied on this list to call everybody and inform them of the day, time, and place of said reunion. It worked throughout the summer, quite well in fact. This time people were somewhat busy and weren't really able to go. We got a few maybes--from Vince and Martin--but in the end we had a totally different group from the last time: me, Kish, James (the only two returning members), John, Janet, and Anna.

The day of the trip we all met up at the Giant parking lot in Ashburn so that we could buy the necessary materials for our little campout. Really I just sat there with Anna while John, Kish, and James went in and got everything. Anna, apparently an avid camper, already had her car stuffed full of more or less anything you could ever need for camping--somewhat convenient. So finally "the guys" come back armed with chips, marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate, and sticks to use for the makin' of smores. Then, after a few more minutes of waiting, Janet arrives and we're prepped to set off. ... and set off we did.

When we arrived we checked in and headed to our nice little plots of soil and trees. We got two of them, since we had six people, each with a fire pit and a couple of tent spots. It was actually quite nice except for the fact that we could hear every gunshot from the firing range. Yeah... luckily that died out as the night progressed, not that we were going to sleep at any decent hour.

Really, everything was fine and dandy--setting up the tents and just chilling--until about the time it began to darken. See, we needed a fire. While we did have James, our boyscout, to tend the fire and Kish actually brought some nice wood, we had nothing to start the fire with. Actually, we did have Anna's starter log thing, but that just didn't want to work well for us. But eventually, after an hour of worrying over the fire, it began burning on its own and we could finally rest. That means it was time to sit down and sing some campfire songs! John pulled out his guitbox and serenaded the rest of us as we made smores and hot dogs that Anna just so happened to have in her car (what'd I say?). Quite an enjoyable time to say the least. Especially the part where Kish's stick burned and both our hot dogs fell in the fire. I have to say, though: hot dogs covered in ash are delicious.

So fun times passed and... ohhhh, right, how could I almost forget one of the best parts of the night? Mentos and diet coke. James and I both had the same idea a few nights earlier and watched the Mythbusters episode on this awesome chemical reaction. Obviously, we had to try it out for ourselves. What I forgot to mention was the other thing that James got at Giant... a pack of mentos, and six 2 liter bottles of diet coke. (Oh, if you're confused as to what I'm referring to, just google it.) Now that was quite awesome. Funny thing that happened: after playing hand and foot, we left all six decks we were using out on the table we had. Later that night, we had our last bottle of diet coke and our last mentos, all a little too close to the table. Needless to say, everything, especially the cards, got soaked. Poor Kish.

Slowly things wound down--mostly after that last little spout on the table--and we cleaned up. Then we all got in Anna's huge--and I mean big--tent. No really, it's big. The six of us fit comfortably inside. Know what we did? ... no, no orgies. Instead we all sat around and pulled out glow sticks and raved. Obviously to the best of our raving abilities. Yeah, we do suck at raving, but it was still fun. Music blaring from my tiny headphones whilst we shook our heads in ecstasy... err, yeah. But after a bit, since Janet had to get up early for work the next morning, John and Janet headed off to their tent on the other side of our plot. We, on the other hand, still had a few more hours left before sleep came.

Another funny story from that night. Raccoons. We all know that if you leave food out that raccoons will most likely find it and eat. Well, this holds true especially when you leave food out on purpose. While we were in the tent we heard some noises coming from outside. Kish took a quick look and--surprise surprise--spotted the little guys. Oh, but the story gets better. James, who the last time had slept outside on the bench, decided to once more sleep on the bench. So he leaves and things quiet down for about twenty minutes, but only twenty minutes. That's when we hear James scream, "Oh shit!" What happened, you may ask? After he ran over to tell us, we found out that he had been trying to sleep, only to open his eyes and find a raccoon on his leg. Yes, this is our boyscout. Hahaha, oh man what fun.

That just about wrapped up the night. We slept around 4 in the morning and woke around 9 (once more to the gunshots). The trip was most definitely worth taking, both for the laughs and interesting conversations held in Anna's tent. Like I said--again... ^^;--I wouldn't mind going camping once more. S'long as James watches out for the raccoons I think it'd all be cool.