ahhhh the joys of camping.

the campsite:

we have managed to get two very lovely campsites - lots of trees and mostly isolated. lots of small sticks around so lighting a fire has been really easy. i'd like to say that i'm still a one-match girl (thank you, daddy) but we didn't bring matches, we brought a kitchen/candle lighter thing. so i'm still a one-lighter girl, but somehow that's just not as impressive.

the wildlife:

we had four fearless chipmunks and a red squirrel brave enough to climb onto mike's shoulder at our first campsite. there is some evidence that a chipmunk may have bitten mike's toe, but we believe in innocent till proven guilty. we do know that he approached a bottle of orange juice and, at the last minute, freaked out and kicked dirt all over it.

on our canoe trip down the river (during which we did not tip once, but did have to get out and pull ourselves over the shallows), we passed a bunch of ducklings that seemed to be on their own. a little ways down the river, we found mama duck some ten feet from the shore and quacking her head off. there was something on the bank which we thought may have been a dog, but on closer inspection was definitely a moderately sized wild cat (do bobcats live in pennsylvania?) we tried to take a good picture (i'll post that when we get home) but when the cat lost interest in the duck and started wiggling his butt while facing in our direction, we skeedadled.

also on the canoe trip, i was just about to put my paddle in the water for rowing purposes when i saw a red and orange snake mostly curled up on the bottom with his head floating above the water. he was probably three or four feet long. i didn't scream, but i'm enough of my mother's child to have felt my heart racing. maybe i should have paddled him.

last night we were sitting by the campfire and i heard something on the picnic table so in very rash fashion, i turned in my chair and shone the flashlight on the table. something was on its hind legs with his head in our food box. he very casually lifted his little masked head out to look at me, then reached his paw back in the box, nabbed one of the chocolate bars we had for making smores and sauntered off with his striped tail waving.

the cultural differences you suddenly notice between you and your spouse:

mike is of the i-don't-care-if-it's-raining-buckets-let's-go-sleep-in-our-tent variety. i'm the you-are-totally-insane-i'm-sleeping-in-the-car type.

mike walked ten or fifteen feet across our campsite in his white socks. i told him that where i come from, he would have been shot, no questions asked. and if someone had said "what did he do??" and received the answer "he was walking in white socks across dirt and sticks and mud" then he would have been shot again.

so now most of our clothes smell like smoke, our towels are in that perpetual damp state that will persist till we get to a dryer, we've had lots of fun in our tent (tia!) and on our hikes, and it's time to move on to washington d.c. where i plan to be totally overwhelmed by the sheer number of things i could be doing and learning about.

one week is not long enough for vacation.