Camping is not my friend

I know many people who love to camp. I am not one of them. It goes back to my high school years with several "bad experiences" I'd like to call them. My best friend Tiana and I tried to "camp" in her back yard a couple of times and had bad experiences both times. Enough to scare us away from camping forever! The first night we had a "visitor" in a drunk man who wobbled down her street just feet away from us which led to a 3 am visit from the cops... the second time we heard a coyote outside our tent and then spent the rest of the night in search of Tiana's cat for fear he had escaped and had been eaten by the coyote. We found the cat safe and sound inside. Then a couple of years later I was camping with my youth group and a friend and I were up late talking and had an unexpected visit from pepe le pue himself! But it's been about 7 years since I have camped and I figured I could handle it this time. After all, I've lived in Africa with snakes and other critters. I can handle the outdoors! It was a beautiful October weekend, the perfect camping weather in Texas.


We found this caterpillar after it either stung or bit one of the kids camping with us. It was a rather interesting little thing and of course we had to take a picture.

Sydney isn't actually walking yet, but oh so close. Poor thing didn't have furniture to cruise around while we were there. So she was confined to her Mommy and Daddy the whole time. I think she still had a fun time!

Carter of course enjoyed himself as any three year old would!

Here was our tent, courtesy of the Murrays. Okay, so we didn't rough it too much on this trip. We had running water AND electricity! We also got to park right at our campsite. The woman were thrilled with this, but the men grumbled that it just wasn't quite camping enough for them! Oh well, the women won out on this one! We actually had a space heater at night which worked out quite nicely for us!

It was an okay camping experince for me over all. No major camping catastrophes. I didn't sleep much at all. I lay awake hearing every single noise around me: coyotes in the distance, a raccoon rummaging through our trash, the wind blowing up against the tent. Reminded me of the days long ago...

Just thankful my husband doesn't want to camp all the time!