Girls Camp

In last week's post I talked about some of my book club’s antics and how I was about to host a girls’ only camp out. When planning the camp out, I told the ladies that my husband said he would be willing to camp a couple of acres away from us, if they thought they would feel more comfortable knowing a man was nearby. The answer was a resounding NO! (But thanks anyway.)

Girls just wanna have fun, right? So no men allowed! (One of the 20-something sons of the group also volunteered to be The Man on Sight. He was vetoed too.)

So we were on our own. And we had fun.

Seven of eight.
Maybe we should have brought a selfie stick!

The first thing we did was unpack a shit-load of food and drink. Each of us brought enough for all of us. That’s one thing about this book club; we will never die of hunger or thirst. Embarrassment? Yes. Laughing? Maybe.

After we had everything organized, we mixed a walk-about-drink. Each of us with our favorite. Gin Bucket, Cape Cod, Captain and diet, beer, and wine.  When everyone had a drink and a bottle of water we headed for the woods.

 

Walk and talk!

The funny and cool thing to me was that, even though there were eight of us (and two were girls I invited- new to the group) everyone walked in two’s and three’s and just chatted away.  Every now and then we would stop to look at something, then the groups would re-organize in a different way and the talking would go on. I loved that my two friends were brought into the fold so easily.

Far left in orange shorts. Bags Tourney.

After a nice long walk we went back to the shed (cabin would be too fancy of a word for the building) and had lunch. Pulled pork, pasta salad and Papa’s Pretzels--YUM!

Next on our agenda (there really was NO agenda) was a round of Tournament Bags. Two games and the winners of each of those games played for the championship. Trash talk and cat calls were the prize.

We sat in the shade and talked about the book we’d read the past month, Breaking Wild by Diane Les Becquets. One of the ladies in our group actually wore orange shorts because the heroine in the story left her blaze orange behind, and it was a near fatal mistake for her.

Shake, shake, shake!

We made camp ice cream. Yep. Cream-based recipe in a sandwich bag inside a gallon bag filled with ice and salt.  We each had a baggie mixture to shake, shake, shake to Pitbull’s and the Ying Yang Twins’ song, Shake. For 10 minutes and frost bit fingers we shaked- um- shook. The ice cream was as good as it was fun to make. Topped with fresh strawberries, uumm, uumm.

Near our camping land is a cemetery. It’s an old, old cemetery. I’ve visited there before so I knew many of the stones dated back to the early 1800’s.  One of the girls said she’d like to visit it. So off we went. Eight jabbering, laughing women suddenly, without preplanning, whispered the whole time we were in the cemetery. We could see by the old markers that in some cases, several members of one family were wiped out in a very short time. We wondered if it was because of illnesses that we so easily treat now with antibiotics. Some of the markers were so worn or covered with dried moss that they were illegible.

As we headed back to our campsite, one of the girls said to me, “You know what? Don’t laugh at me, but I think those people buried there were smiling because we visited them.”

I won’t laugh at you. I can agree with you.

 “And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” – Ecclesiastes 12:7

In my next post I will talk about camping after dark…

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself.

~Nadine