Camping

As you all know, we love camping.  We just finished our second camp out of the season and it was wonderful.  When we started the season, I went to get our sleeping bags and realized that I did not put them away properly last year and they weren't rolled up.  The cat took the opportunity to rub herself all over them and burrow in them.  This created a huge problem as the Huz is allergic to her and now her hair was all over both of them.  No way could he sleep in them.  I tried the sticky roller, the furminater, a brush, nothing was working, so off to the laundromat we went. I washed each in their own big front loader then thru them both in the same dryer.  It took for ever and we still ended up taking them home damp.  I was instantly worried when I got them laid out at home and some of the batting was now bunched.  We have now found out I had a right to be worried.  The first camp out we went on we had to borrow my sister's tent heater to keep warm, but it was in the 30's so I wasn't sure.  The camp out last weekend proved it.  It was fairly warm and we still got too cold int he night.  My washing our bags ruined their thermal capabilities.  This is so sad cause they were rated down to -5 and the past two years have kept us nice and cozy.  Not to mention they weren't cheap, and I don't want to spend that again to replace them.  We'll have to go back to stuffing blankets inside and borrowing the heater when we can.  Makes me mad. I have a suggestion on how to fix it, but that will be it's own post.

Anyway, we went camping with a group of exmormons, who are all part of a group called Postmos.  We didn't really know anyone, there were only one or two that we had met once before, but we had a really fun time and it was good to hear everyone's stories and points of view on things.  Everyone was on their own for food and Huz made a pot of his every-pot-is-different-but-oh-so-tasty chili and once we had dished ours up we offered up the left overs to whomever wanted some.  Everyone who had a bowl wanted to know the secret and the recipe and raved over it's flavor.  You just can't beat made-from-scratch chili powder, it's amazing!  He added lamb to it this time, and I really liked the lamb/beef combo. There wasn't very much at all left, maybe enough for one chili dog, when I went to clean the dutch. We all gathered around the fire and guitars were brought out and booze was offered up and passed around.  We sang a bit, talked a lot, and all had a great time well into the wee hours. 

One conversation was really interesting, we got talking about the "do unto others" rule and it got way too literal.  The thought behind it was, if you do unto to others as you would have done to you, the other party may not like it.  For example, you like getting flowers so you buy someone else flowers, but what if they don't like flowers?  If you did to/for others only what you like, it could backfire on you.  Which is true if it's taken completely in it's literal sense.  But it came down to you can't take it literally, that you just need to take the meaning behind it and work with that. You have to take into consideration the other party's needs and wants and really it comes down to just simply being nice to everyone.  If you are considerate and nice to others, they will be considerate and nice to you.  Take their likes and dislikes into account, and they will most likely do the same for you.  So the lesson from that night is, as Wil Wheaten likes to put it, don't be a dick.

In the morning, Huz made a garbage hash breakfast that we also shared the leftovers of, and it went over as well as the chili had.  There was nothing left in the pot to take home.  Those that spent the night talked a lot while we all ate breakfast and broke camp. 

Over all it was a great camp out.