Camping, so much better with friends...

I'm a planner.  I always reserve our campsites at least a week in advance, partly to ensure that we are motivated to make it up into the woods, but mostly because I can't stand the thought of spending my entire day preparing for a camping trip only to drive around looking for a dumb site.

Problem is, the so-called "reservation fee" they tack on when you reserve a campsite online is almost as much as the campsite fee.  So the planner in me pretty much doubles the cost of a campsite.  Well, Tim has appealed to the cheapskate in me and shamed me into heading up into the woods on a wing and a prayer in hopes of finding the perfect campsite last minute (but at a 50% discount).  Over Labor Day we had the added pleasure of having invited a few friends to join us on our camping trip.  We left at 3:45, drove about an hour into the mountains straight to our destination, and found a double campsite to fit our three families comfortably.  Yay!

Eve and James (her best buddy) were in absolute heaven.

 So was everyone else.  Lily even found a friend from school in an adjacent campsite to pal around with.

 Splashing around in the creek, playing with bugs, using a vault toilet, playing with fire, letting mom and dad do all the work, subsisting on marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers - what's not to love?

Thanks to our friends for adding that extra bit of fun factor to our excursion.  And building that early morning campfire before I even slipped out of the tent.