{oopsie. oh, and camping.}

Hi, I'm Ashley. I used to write things here. It's been a solid 100 days since I last hung out with you all (digitally speaking, that is), so I feel the need to re-introduce myself.  Uber sorry for the hiatus. I have no real excuse.  But I'm back, so get ready...and get excited. Why? Cause I went CAMPING.

For many, heading out into the wilderness with a tent and bug spray but no technology is fun. Maybe even a somewhat regular activity.  For me? Not so much. My sister and I are referred to (lovingly, I hope) by our extened family as "the city girls." My uncle owns a petting zoo in rural New Hampshire (although I guess it's all pretty rural when compared to the nation's capitol) and couldn't believe we'd ever want to wear make-up or straighten our hair between milking goats (yes, goats. See below.) and feeding pigs (again, below). For the record, we won that battle and tamed the frizz.

{i doubt the goat likes it any more than she does}

{so small but so unpredictable.}

As the above photographic evidence would suggest, I'm not the most outdoorsy girl in the world. Thus, when we picked this card out of our "happiness challenge" jar, we all just sort of stared at each other.



{yikes}

After a collective guffaw, we pulled it together and set a date. Which subsequently got changed several times. Note: when one-third of  happiness challenge participants moved out of our home, it became a little harder to stick to our "one card per week" routine. And by "a little harder" I mean impossible. I think we have seven challenge cards posted on the fridge ready to be acted upon. Down to six now that we've embraced our inner Daniel Boones.

{the Kashi and yogurt were unrelated purchases - we're not THAT ridiculous}

I'm fairly certain we googled "camping for pansies" to get things started. We read reviews on assorted travel sites and set our sights on Prince William Forest Park. It may not have totally lived up to its tagline, "Experience a place where history and nature unite!" but it certainly fit the bill (3 minutes off the highway and seven bucks a piece for our very own "private" camp site). In reality, there were other families no more than 50 yards from us in every direction, but that fact gave us more comfort that it did disappointment. We figured someone would hear our screams if a bear and/or axe murderer threatened us during the night.

We parked our car (yes, this level of auto-proximity is how they define "camping" at PWF) at our re-assigned camp site and got down to business. There was a family of 10 (plus a boy scout?) on our original site when we got there, and after a minor altercation, but no progress made, we called in the camp ranger.  He was little help, although did inform us that the nightly presentation that evening featured "TURTLES!" We checked our watches, reminded ourselves we had precious little sunlight and no idea how to pitch a tent, cut our losses and trekked drove the Camry to a nearby vacant site. A short time later, the boy scout et al. drove past us on their way out (after missing "check out" by 4.5 hours). That was awkward. Mostly because an hour had gone by and all we'd done was unload the s'mores supplies from the vehicle.

{it took us ten minutes to get the tent out of the bag. i didn't help, just took pictures.}

{yes, they're cute, but this configuration was necessary for tent assembly too}

Earth to everyone: putting up a tent is ridiculously hard. It took the three of us a solid hour. The surprise daddy long legs visits didn't help, nor did the fact that proper tent set-up required four people. Our neighbor yelled that we looked like we "belonged in the circus." Mortifying.

After the Great Tent Adventure of 2011, we celebrated our victory with a little red wine and some card games. Then it got dark. Darn. When it's dark and you're camping, all you do is eat. Literally. We had popcorn, hot dogs, squash, baked potato, and of course s'mores (cue famous scene from The Sandlot). Then, in typical 20-something fashion, we took a series of automatic timer photos posing with each other and s'mores sticks. At this point it was 8:30, and in true 70-something fashion, we were all ready to turn in.

I put on my headlamp (I mocked my sister's boyfriend for forcing me to pack this, but it turned out to be the best decision ever), we hiked (a whole 100 yards!) to the bathroom, and got ready for bed (brushed our teeth in 30 seconds or less).  Because we're paranoid, meaning we've seen way too many horror movies, we brought into our tent a hammer (self defense, duh), a pan (to make noise when the bear/axe murderer came into our tent to get us), and several fire starters (not sure what our plan was here). After whining for ten minutes about how hard the ground was, we snuggled into our sleeping bags. Goodnight moon.

{the vote is in: they're so much better charred}

Reflecting on the trip, I'm still pretty shocked we a) pitched a tent, b) made a fire and c) survived in general. Most of the males in our lives had money on us coming home in tears with a trunk full of unopened food and a sad story about how we couldn't hack it. We did break the #1 rule of camping (sleep with your head uphill from your feet), so we woke up with wicked headaches, but otherwise unscathed.

We slept poorly (part nerves, part poor choice of body positioning) and woke up super early. We packed up and shipped out, straight to Dunkin' Donuts. Don't judge - we're domesticated women. Then we make the long trek home (read: a half-hour on I-95), patted ourselves on the backs, and busted out our cellphones to tweet about the weekend. You can take the girls out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the girls.