This week my son and I headed to the great outdoors for a couple of days camping. He has been wanting to go for a while. Me too. But we have not felt comfortable with any place in Mexico to make a go of it. I don’t mind primitive camping, but I do like to at least know what kind of animals are going to kill me while I sleep. So we waited till we got back home.
We went to Big Lagoon State Park. It is only 12 miles from where we live. But once you enter the park it seems like you are way out there.
Monday
We arrived at the campground around 3:00 in the afternoon. That is check-in time and it seemed like a good time to get there. That allowed us to have a good final lunch at home before having to eat my cooking.
We got camp set up and then spent a good amount of time trying to string up the G5RV dipole antenna for the ham radio we took along. After we got it all up in the air I saw a note in one of the camp brochures the next day saying not to tie or hang anything in the trees. Oops.
We did not do any exploring that afternoon/evening since we had to run part way back to town to get some supplies we had forgotten. There is a Wal-Mart about half way between the camp and home, so I had my wife meet us there with some things and we popped in to Wal-Mart for the other items. We then spent an hour or so enjoying ice creams from Sonic before parting ways.
Tuesday
After a restless night’s sleep, we got up early to put the coffee pot to use. Yes, my 10 year old drank his fill of coffee. Good for keeping you warm, not that it was too cold. I think it was 68 when we got up Tuesday morning. Not too cold, but cool enough to justify coffee for the lad.
We hiked for a good long time after a breakfast of eggs and bacon. We returned to the camp for a rest and to read a book. Another hike before a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
In the afternoon I took a nap and we rode bikes and read books until we met up with my Dad who brought us some fishing poles and hamburgers. We ate the burgers and headed down to the seashore to do some fishing. My son caught the first fish. It was a pinfish about 6 inches long. The neighbor fishing near us bought it off of him for $1 for bait. The next 2 we caught we donated to the neighbor. We ended up with about 8 pinfish (which we turned into bait or tossed back) and the final catch was a 5 inch catfish. I must have hooked it while trying to set another nibbler. The catfish was hooked in the eye. Ouch!
Slept better that night. Was also much cooler.
Wednesday
Got up to 64 degree temps. Felt cooler since the wind was blowing. After the standard eggs and bacon we went bike riding for a bit. Camp was packed up in various stages of the morning. We also read for a while. Eventually we got out of there around 1:00.
In the events of the 3 days we cooked s’mores and burned hot dogs. We did some torturous things to marshmallows. Though we did not talk with anyone on the radio, we listened to people from Switzerland, Virgin Islands, Spain and Italy. We had more fun with fire than should be allowed. Probably would have had a whole lot less fun if my wife had been there. My son had fun taking hikes with the camera by himself. I was not too worried that there was a pond that hosted 3 alligators just 100 yards from our tent. Maybe I should have been. But this was a fun time to relax and not worry about the world crashing down around us. So we didn’t let a little thing like the stock market or alligators get us too worked up.
Week 13