Camping without a Camera

This summer, after I got tired of getting through security at the airport, we decided to drive Arkansas for a camping trip with my brothers, Matthew and Jonathan.

Thirty minutes into our mini-road trip I began furiously digging through my bags and purse, only to come up empty-handed and dismayed. I had forgot the camera. How could I forget the camera? I was sick the entire way to the campsite, and then we arrive, hopped out of the car, and realized that during the course of our 3 hours drive the temperature had dropped down into the upper-70s. I forgot all about the camera.

It was a fabulous outdoor weekend. On the drive home, in good "I'm the only girl in the car so I have to act like a mother" fashion I asked everyone to tell me some of the memories from the weekend so that I could blog about them.

I got a few grunts from Jonathan, Danny repeatedly saying he liked kayaking, and Matthew simply itching at his poison ivy.

I finally mustered the following highlights out of them:

• Exploring the lake's nooks and cranies in a kayak (I added the nooks and cranies part).
• Racing kayaks
• Eating Matthew's homemade, dutch oven, slightly burnt peach cobbler (no matter, everything tastes delish when you eat it outside)
• Biscuits, gravy, bacon and coffee in the morning for breakfast - those weren't burnt!
• Slowly coming to the realization on the way home that all the boys had poison ivy and I walked away completely un-itchy!
• Jumping off a rock/cliff into the lake
• All four of us huddling under Matthew's fabulous tarp shelter that kept us dry while it rained the entire second day
• Getting to rest and not do much of anything but play and eat and sleep
• Snorkeling
• Sleeping to the sound of rain on the tent
• Danny and Matthew scaring off a raccoon who managed to weasel his way into our food tupperware container in the middle of the night
• Joey making us the best s'mores ever - I think we all finally gave up roasting our own marshmellows and just put our orders in with Joey
• Collecting firewood and seeing Matthew come up the hill dragging two small trees for kindling and feeling quite pitiful with my handful of twigs
• Playing cards
• Floating in lake
• Amazing weather - sunny, but not too hot
• Joey sleeping outside, under the stars, on only his sleeping bag the first night while the rest of us crawled into tents. It lasted for 10 minutes before Danny and I hear Joey yell and then scurrying into Matthew's tent. (He claims that a beetle crawled on him and pinched him. He'll have to post a comment in his own self-defense.)
• Getting lost in some little Arkansas town just trying to leave the campgrounds

And that is how two Stillers and two Reeders do camping.