Camping!

We have been wanting to go camping for quite awhile now. However, I am a fair weather camper! I do NOT like to be too HOT! Chilly is excellent and cold is OK but I HATE hot! Our camping week finally arrived! We packed just about everything except the kitchen sink!

This included our dog Lucy and her LARGE kennel!

(LD even managed to pack in a small FREEZER! NO! I am NOT kidding!)

Just when I thought we had EVERYTHING.....Louis Dean thought of ONE thing MORE!!

It is a good thing we are so much alike!

After a stop to get the needed groceries.....steak, hot dogs, chicken and lunch meat...

we were ON OUR WAY!!

This state park is just about two hours and a whole lifestyle away from our house!

Screen Shelter #7 was our chosen site!

This is the view from our camp fire area.....just beautiful and ever so peaceful!

We were the ONLY guests in the park on Monday!

Imagine! A state park ALL to ourselves!!

The ducks, geese, deer, birds and various and sundry other wildlife including flies and bees

were all gracious enough to share the park with us!

It was nice having the bath house close by! Only four sites up from #7!

As soon as we had settled in and had our first picnic Louis Dean decided to fish!

I took this pic from the shelter where I opted for reading and a nap!

We brought plenty of firewood! You can't camp without a FIRE!!

 I built one up as soon as we arrived and then put foil wrapped baked potatoes in the ashes to bake.

We grilled steaks on the charcoal grill and dined like royalty that first night!

We listened to what was to be the final game of the World Series on the radio.

We were SO hoping the Rangers would WIN!!

What an achievement to be IN the World Series, though!!

Tuesday morning we woke early to go back into Fort Worth for my Aunt Irene's funeral.

I had packed a bag especially for that so I trotted up to the bath house to get ready!

Black skirt....check!

Black hose........check!

Black shoes.....check!

Black draper jacket.....check!

Pearl necklace and earrings.....check!

But WHERE was my black silky TOP??? NOT here!!

Good thing I had a black tee shirt packed to wear with my jeans!

NOT exactly as I planned but I was glad to have it!

We rode into Fort Worth with the rain leading the way!

It was gray, chilly, and rained.....sometimes a real downpour!

My Aunt was a lovely lady and I believe it is so much easier to see a loved one leave this earthly life when we know they have been ushered into an even better one. Aunt Irene was a born again, Bible believing Christian! The minister shared the plan of salvation with everyone during the service. Aunt Irene would have liked that!

Afterwards we all gathered at my sister, Nita's, house for food and fellowship. It is comforting to visit together after a loss in the family. Cousins, aunts, nephew, nieces....we all came together with our own memories of Aunt Irene and we shared them with each other. We talked of others who had gone on before and shared reminiscences about them. I like being part of a 'Family' with family history connecting us, however loosely at times, so that we remain a part of each others lives.

We drove back to the park in the pouring rain! I got sleepier and sleepier with each mile!

We discovered the ground was DRY and it had yet to rain in Mineral Wells!

Louis Dean went back down to the water to pick up where he left off on fishing.....

And I took a delicious nap!! Air mattress with flannel sheets, an electric blanket and then piles of soft cuddly blankets mixed with light windy rain rustling through the tree tops all made for PERFECT sleeping weather!

We spent Tuesday evening again listening to the radio, this time INSIDE the shelter, to the election returns.

Wednesday was beautiful! I took my little 'Prayer Bear' down to this scenic spot for some quiet prayer time. The ladies at First Christian Church have an Eat Love Pray group and I am this month's designated 'prayer'. As I sat on this top step with prayer list in hand, it was so EASY to talk to God. I watched the water sparkle with tiny diamonds and felt the Holy Spirit stir with His presence. Each day I prayed in a different place and each day my prayer time took off in a different direction. I found myself praying scripture as I came to each name......a  different scripture for each and every request I had written down. I was glad I had memorized so many Bible verses because the Spirit would just whisper to my mind the perfect ONE for that particular lady.

If there was ONE high light to our camping experience that overshadowed all others---I would say it was my prayer time! I hope to continue in this fashion even though I am back in my 'normal' life!

I tried my hand at fishing.......

......but I was better suited for reading and cutting out quilt squares.....

....and cooking up camp food!

....and keeping the fire going!

I decided to leave the fishing to Louis Dean! He was getting pretty good at it!

He did the 'catch and release' thing this time around. He had no idea he would really CATCH any!

In the evening he would play his guitar and sing. If there was any one thing he wishes I could do that I can't--

it would be to sing! Once I told him, "I WISH I could sing!" He replied, "So do I!!!!"

He did bring a tambourine along on this trip and I tried to jingle it in time to the music.

I'm pretty sure it didn't really sound good!

We drank countless cups of coffee and hot tea! NOTHING taste so good as when you have it outdoors!

All too soon the week was over and it was time to break camp and return home!

As good as it is to get away.....it is just as nice to come home again!

I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. It has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful. Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and benumbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me - I am happy. ~
                                            Hamlin Garland, McClure's, February 1899