Uno, S'mores, and Murdered Vegans

Two weekends ago I went camping with my adopted group of friends (meaning the group of seniors I wormed my way into). Each of them are very friendly and funny in their own unique way. After sitting at their table at lunch for a couple of weeks I started becoming involved in their weekend plans (since camping I have gone to 2.5 birthday parties and on October 2nd we'll go to Octoberfest!...in Iowa.) Now, I am not what you would call an experienced camper. My Girl Scout troop was not the rough-it-in-the-woods kind of group (more like rough-it-in-the-air-conditioned-cabin) and, while I appreciate nature, I usually don't feel the need to sleep in it. I knew, however, that camping with this group would be a lot of fun and so I bit the bullet, with an open mind.

Jessica (hilarious extrovert) and Sara (a great baker) went to Rock Creek State Park on Friday afternoon and stayed that night. When I arrived on Saturday afternoon (around 3pm), two more people had arrived: Elyse (was in my Environmental History of Food class with me) and Leah (quiet, but quirky). Jessica, Elyse, Sara and Leah were playing the most intense game of Uno I have ever witnessed. The game had apparently been going on for at least an hour and there was tense competition between Elyse and Leah: Leah kept skipping Elyse's turn and Elyse kept making surprisingly believable death threats at Leah. AND by the time I arrived, an alliance had already been formed and broken between Jessica and Elyse. Finally someone won first place and they started going for second until they realized that they now hated Uno.

A little while later Janna and Zach (girlfriend and boyfriend) and Ben (Stephanie's boyfriend) arrived and the group was complete. We hate hotdogs and many many many s'mores. After it got darkish we sat around the campfire. Jessica and Sara told a ghost story they had made up the previous night. Some short background: the group likes to tease Leah who is sort of small and a vegan. The story was about a group of college students camping at Creek Rock Park. They hear a story, from an old man, about a ghost who only kills vegans because his wife was killed by a vegan. The next day the college students find the smallest member of their group, who is a vegan, murdered with a hot dog stuck in her mouth.

By this point we had eaten and told ghost stories and it was dark. It kind of felt like it was time for bed and so someone asked for the time. It was like 8:20 pm. To fill up more time we discussed Disney movies, princess and princes. We also sang some "campfire" songs; Sara sang songs from her church camp and Elyse and I did a wonderful rendition of 'There's a hole in my bucket dear Liza'.

Eventually the time came to sleep. Zach and Janna slept outside (I cannot begin to imagine how uncomfortable that was-but I'm getting ahead of myself). Ben slept in Jessica's car. Leah and I slept in a tent and the others slept in another tent. When I was packing for the trip I thought we were going to have sleeping bags (we didn't, just blankets) so I didn't pack the amount of layers I really should have because it turned out to be very very cold that night. By the time 8am rolled around I had maybe about three hours of sleep. I packed up my things and was the first to leave the camp because, when I woke up, my goosebumps looked like gooseroadblocks. I was also still recovering from my cold and if I was going to do any of the massive reading I had for that weekend I needed to sleep under the warmth of my comforter.

After making sure to leave before I froze to death, I decided the best ending to the camping trip would be an egg McMuffin. After ordering and paying I went up to the second window to pick up my food. After handing me my fat and calories the woman working there said:

"It's a bit cooler this morning, isn't it?"