Apparently, we're that sort of family now ...

People always used to ask us, "Do you camp?" And we'd always say, "No. We're the sort of people that should like camping, we just don't."

That, my friends, is no longer true. Let me tell you about the genesis of the Kline family as camping "experts." (Translation: expert=survivor).

Last August, we borrowed a bunch of equipment and went camping with about 14 million preschoolers from HFP. This wasn't exactly roughing it - the trip involved a camping blender and a lot of margaritas - but we watched people use camp stoves and saw how they packed their gear and picked up a whole bunch of neat ideas. We also learned that you will NOT freeze to death if you sleep in a tent. Valuable info.

Back on Mother's Day, we scaled down in size and went to Beverly Beach with our friends Jack, Stephanie, Mia, and Miles. We bought a bunch of our own equipment instead of borrowing it, but we still weren't roughing it. We stayed in yurts (highly recommend the yurt, btw, jsut for the sheer joy of saying "yurt" over and over). The cmping blender made another appearance, but we didn't have nearly so many maragaritas. We did, of course, pick up more tips and tricks. Stephanie showed Christie how to make a little fire starter out of wax, woodchips, and egg cartons. Christie confirmed that she does, in fact, know how to start a fire. Ed watched. Ed fears fire.

Last weekend, we went solo. We went to Oswald West State Park. We slept in our own sleeping bags in our own tent. Christie started our own fire with her own firestarters. We ate camp food. We cooked on a cookstove and Wrigley ate about 14 million marshmallows. Now this, this was roughing it: no camping blender. We didn't even bring beer. The beach was amazing - it had good surf to watch (surfers, too), rocks to climb on, rocks to skip on a little river, tide pools to explore, a waterfall, and plenty of driftwood. A blast was had by all.

Christie has some pictures posted at flickr (I hear her site it "to die for"), if you're interested.

And I know you're only supposed to take out what you bring with you, but I found some nice poems out in the woods. They wanted to come home with me, so I let them. Maybe I'll type 'em up tomorrow.