Clever Escape

Our last night camping was a Friday night, which meant that the campgrounds up and down the creek were packed. Most were packed the night before as well, but more with campers looking for quiet, it seems, because the Friday night campers were definitely more…awake.

There were the drummers, location unknown, that chanted along to the beat of their drum until midnight or so.

And the incessant gigglers who were two sites away from us and apparently found absolutely everything in the world funny until 11:30.

And the constant stream of traffic driving through the campground, looking for an available site, despite the large, well-lit “FULL” sign at the entrance.

I was awake for all of this, but it is not what I woke up because of.

Somewhere in there (I refused to look at the clock, because it would have required getting out of bed to find the watch, and it was freaking cold) I woke up to shuffling noises outside our tent.

I thought it was just the people next door doing something, or someone getting water from the spout that was right in front of our site.

Then I thought I heard someone messing with our cooler, but since I didn’t hear anything else, I ignored it.

It was cold so I didn’t get out of bed to check it out, and a little while after that everyone started quieting down. We found out the next day it was because the campground host had gone around yelling at everybody to be quiet (quiet time starts at 10), though he never did find the drummers. They must have been downstream somewhere.

The next morning I got up to go to the bathroom (otherwise known as a hole in the ground with a toilet seat over it, but well ventilated so not the worst I’ve seen) and came back and noticed that one of our boxes was open and my husband’s oatmeal was spilled everywhere.

I thought it was one of these

searching for more grapes but discovered oatmeal instead. He had been hanging around the campsite since we got there, not at all afraid of us. He was cute.

Alas, I was wrong. Because shortly thereafter my husband got his lazy ass out of bed and went to get the bacon and eggs out of the cooler and found a horrendous mess. Something had gotten into the cooler and smashed/eaten two of our eggs, tore open a bunch of the packages, ate all of our pepperoni (my husband was particularly sad about this), ate all of our cheese, and left dirty footprints all over our stuff.

When the campground host came over to see when we were leaving he said that it was probably one of these:

that had gotten into the cooler. He said they were everywhere up there.

At least it was the last day there, and it didn’t get into the bacon.

The smell of the pepperonis probably distracted it.

We got back from camping yesterday afternoon, unloaded the truck in 110 degree heat and took a long, air conditioned nap.

Camping was so nice. For the most part, it was very quiet. There was no TV, no internet, no radio, no phones (we turned them off), nothing. It was lovely.

We drove up to Oak Creek Canyon, which is just north of Sedona, to a campground up there. For the most part, camping on national forest land (which this is) has to be done in a campground. We did manage to find a trail that allows backpackers to camp “out there” so long as you are at least six miles down the fourteen mile trail. Something to remember for the future.

We decided that we didn’t like the site that we had reserved (it was right by the road) so we looked around and found another site that was first-come-first-served and the campground host was cool with us moving over there. They said it was arguably the best site there because it was right in view of the cliffs, right next to the creek, and behind a bunch of trees and down a path so it was pretty private. I liked it. As soon as I stop being lazy I will upload some pictures.

The day we got there it was about 85 degrees, then cooled down to 70, and dropped from there as soon as the sun set. I was cold and glad I brought a hoodie and sweatpants to sleep in, because it was freezing that night! We didn’t expect it to get that cold and hadn’t gotten the sleeping bag out, just a blanket, so I woke up shivering and had to get it out in the middle of the night.

Mostly we occupied ourselves going hiking, playing cards and driving down to Slide Rock. Hiking was pretty cool. The first trail we did was right across the road from the campground and the host said that it was rated “strenuous”, which we discovered meant that it was a mile and a half straight up. Definitely strenuous. Last year I would have had a horrible time with it, but with all the running I have been doing, it wasn’t so bad. I actually surprised myself.

My husband, the smoker with asthma, had a harder time.

So up, up, up we went, stopping for view/water/icantbreathecauseimasmoker breaks and then, ten feet from the top of the mountain we were almost done climbing, I saw this:

under a rock between me and the top of the mountain (note: not actual picture of the snake, we did not have our camera with us because it was an extremely steep climb).

That would be a (as we later found out) Milksnake. Non-venomous, basically harmless. But we didn’t know that at the time.

Bastard snake.

I know, as I’m sure that most of you are aware, that things that are bright colors are bright colors as a warning that they are bad for you. I naturally assumed that this snake was bad for me and refused to go near it. Which included not finishing the last ten feet of the crazy hard trail we had just hiked.

My husband had other plans.

He got up all close to it and was looking at it’s head and trying to make it move and stuff. Moron. Then he dragged me around it and up to the top of the trail.

Then we had to go back down again, only from above, you can’t see under the rock that it had been hiding under. No idea if it was still where we had left it or not. So I made him sneak around and find it, and then I ran way, way around it and back down the trail. Far, far away from the snake.

Ech.

That was our one and only encounter with a snake while we were up there. Well, that I saw anyhow. I heard plenty of sounds that could have been snakes, but did not bother to look and verify.

However, we did manage to meet a variety of other creatures, which I will write about later.

…until Saturday when we return from the hopefully not as hot as the valley northern areas of the state.

Guess I’d better go load the car.

…

Or not.

So yesterday I was walking out to the complex gate to go running and I went to step up on the curb to the sidewalk and apparently I did not put my foot far enough onto the curb because when I went to put my weight on it and put my other foot up on the sidewalk, the first foot slipped down and f*ed me all up.

And I went running anyway.

As a result, my shin is freaking killing me. I probably aggravated my already not so great shin splints that I get from running on concrete (I’m to lazy and cheap to drive somewhere not concrete) cause it hurts like hell.

Guess I don’t have that walking thing down quite yet.

And all right in time to go hiking! Isn’t it marvelous?

Tomorrow we are leaving to go camping for our anniversary. Which means that today I get to get all the camping stuff out and go grocery shopping and make sure we have everything. Since my husband is *conveniently* sleeping.

Yes, I know he works nights and he is always sleeping right now. But still.

AND I need to clean the house because I know I’m not going to want to when we get back, and Sunshine is flying in for the summer next week.

I’m actually really excited about camping - we haven’t done anything like that for a long time. As in, anything not here. Not in the valley. And now is the perfect time to go since it has been over 110 for the past I don’t even know how long. Two weeks? And at least all of this week, and probably next week?

I don’t think I am into writing right now. Writer’s block or something. I know I have things to say, they just aren’t coming to me right now.

Maybe later.

Otherwise, we won’t be back from camping until Saturday!