Hi Ho The Derry-O....

...A-Camping We Will Go. I haven't been able to post much recently as I was Sick-As-A-Dog last week with something akin to avian flu. Putting my own well-being aside, I reached deep into my reserves of Motherly Devotion and was able to summon the strength to pack our car so tightly that only air spaces for breathing were left and drive 3+ hours to Garner State Park along the Frio River for a weekend of camping excitement.

This was our second time camping after joining friends who are camping veterans last November on a trip to Lost Maples. It rained on us that entire weekend but somehow we still managed to have more than a lot of fun. It was an educational trip for me in many ways, including interesting ways to play Loaded Questions. Throw those instructional booklets away and let your imagination run free! I won't get into the details of the "new" way since my parents read this, but it was, ummmm, pretty fun. They call themselves the "Mocha Nudie Sheers" and I had a lot of Wikipedia reading to do when we got home, all due to this game. That's all I'm saying.

Pushing through the illness, I kayaked for the first time and it was fun, fun, fun. Mrs. C and Mrs. S convinced me to jump off a rope swing, and we even climbed a mountain. It probably isn't technically a mountain, but it WAS a really big hill and very steep. We were three girls kayaking down the river and totally looked like we knew what we were doing...except the time Mrs. S and I almost took out a cove of frolicking children who were just watching us, paddles flailing, head straight for them like deer in headlights. A word of advice...warn your children, if a kayak is heading straight at you and is 10 feet and closing fast, you should try to get out of the way.

The kids had non-stop action including swimming, minnow chasing, drifting in the current, hiking to the bathrooms at 5 am, geo-caching, a pinata, an Easter egg hunt, decorating cupcakes, a chili cook-off, s'mores, and riding in the back of a truck just like when I was a kid and no one hassled with seatbelts or silly rules like 'All persons should ride INSIDE the cab of a moving vehicle'. I'm pretty sure this is legal in a state park, so please don't call CPS.

I think everyone else looks pretty darn good in this photo, but next time I'm going to vote for doing the group photo on the FIRST night, not the last morning when I look, feel and smell like Ted Kascynski before the beard got too unruly.