More Camping

This weekend we returned to Crabtree Meadows and set up camp on Saturday. I think that site 67 is my favorite spot there because it is nestled amid tons of trees and is on the outer loop of the campground.


Saturday was pretty typical camping for us. We set up, read for a while, built a fire, cooked dinner and were just hanging out around camp, when a bunch of guys rolled up to a neighboring spot and started unpacking. From the moment they arrived, they were loud and obnoxious but we made it through the night without too many disturbances.

So Sunday morning we were feeling refreshed and took a long hike to the falls.

I will say up front that we didn't carve it, but we thought it was pretty cute that this was on the railing, looking out to the falls:

For the rest of the day, we relaxed, took a beautiful drive on the Parkway and came back in time to build a fire to cook dinner. We had just finished making our pita melts when it started raining.

No big deal, we thought, we had been expecting a few showers over the weekend and had, up until that point, felt very lucky that no rain had fallen at all. So, we threw our stuff in the tent, happily ate our dinner, worked some crosswords, read a little more, talked...were as happy as we could be. We decided to turn in early since it was still raining around 9 and were still feeling cozy and good.

These two were very cozy...

But then the evening turned sour. A few hours of rain was kind of charming, we thought. But it kept raining harder and harder... Let me tell you folks, it rained ALL NIGHT. It rained buckets all night. The tent collapsed in on us at one point because it was raining so hard, which totally freaked me out because I thought a limb had fallen on the tent. Alas, it was the sheer force of the rain.

And it got better. Remember our loud friends from the night before? Their car alarm went off at least 20 times throughout the night, and it would take them about 30 seconds to turn it off each time. Why, you say? How could this happen, you say? These questions, and many others, were discussed and sworn about at 3 a.m. It was shocking because people are usually very considerate at campgrounds on the Parkway.

At the first sign of dawn, with hardly any sleep, we threw everything in the car, soaking wet, and came home. It was, if nothing else, a very memorable night, and we are quite happy to be home.

But I'm sure we'll be back up there within a matter of weeks. Anyone want to join us? ;)