Exhausting Weekend

I headed to Perdenales Falls State Park for a girls weekend camping trip with my college friends! And man, what an exhausting, but fun filled weekend it was.

On Friday, Girvan picked me and my 800-piece entourage (bag, pillows, food, cooler, etc.) and we strategically squeezed everything into her car. I was pretty proud that it all fit, even if it did look like her car was bursting at the seams.

We were the last ones to arrive around 7:15 pm on Friday night. Ellen and Meghan had already cooled off in the river and Sarah was busy cranking up the pop-up trailer (with assitance from Jason, who was awesome to come and help us set-up. Don't worry, he was paid, even if only in Lone Star beer form). After final assembly, we were all pretty sweaty and cranked the A/C up in the trailer. Even though it took awhile for the place too cool down, I have to say, the A/C was greatly appreciated, particularly in this hot July heat.

Brisket sandwiches, courtesy of Ellen were prepared and followed up by banana boats by Meghan. Then we had the mother of all Phase 10 games - Ellen, whom I'm claiming had beginner's luck, ended up the victor!

Things started winding down around 12:30am and that's when the carbon-monoxide alarm went off. We were all wide-eyed and frantic trying to search for the source of the high pitched beep. Finally, we located it and determined that we had just left the gas tank on. I don't think it was too dangerous, but we aired out the camper just in case. Judging by the volume of the alarm, I don't think we won too many popularity awards from the adjoining campsites.

The next day, we enjoyed some breakfast at camp then took off to take a quick hike down to the 'Falls'. I use that term lightly because, due to a 2-year drought, we can hardly call it falls. But, the rock formations were beautiful anyway. Hiking down wasn't such a problem for me, but going up was another story.

While I'm the first to admit I'm not in prime shape, I knew this trail wouldn't be hard for me to take under normal conditions. But it turns out that pregnant and hiking in close to 100-degree temperatures up even the slightest of slopes, proves difficult. Let's just say, I took many breaks and sucked down plenty of water. We were also going to head down to the swimming hole to take a look at the conditions, until Meghan mentioned something about 99 steps. That's when I said thanks, but no thanks. I don't think I could of survived that.

We headed back to camp just in time for lunch, had some sandwiches and ended up spending most of the day inside the camper trying to keep cool. I would of loved to of gone down to the river and in retrospect should of jumped at the opportunity. Ah well, maybe next time. More Phase 10 games followed until late afternoon.

Around 5pm, things started getting bearable outside thanks to some cloud coverage. We discovered Sarah's pop-up had a canopy and that became an adventure in itself. After pulling the thing out and assembling all the poles, it took us longer than I'd like to admit :) to figure out how to put the thing together. Finally up, we decided to string up some Christmas lights Sarah had brought. No sooner did we put them up then it started rainng and the wind picked up. While we started rearranging our outdoor furniture, a huge gust of wind came flying in and ripped the entire canopy up and scattered the poles and Christmas lights everywhere. It was disheartening to say the least.

But not to be easitly defeated, we regrouped and got the canopy back up in record time. By then we were soaked and sweaty, not a great combination. Off to the showers and back for a great meal of shish-kabobs and rice and beans by Meghan. Delicious!

The mosquitos chased us back inside by 10pm. Then we played a quick game of dominos, in which Girvan kicked all our butts. More Phase 10 and then we crashed out. Sunday morning dawned and we started packing up camp.

I have to say, I'm super proud that we were able to empty the camper, clean up camp and disassemble the pop-up in around one hours time. We even successfully backed up the truck and attached the camper with minimum effort (go team!).

Back to Sarah's to switch cars and an easy ride back to San Antonio. Needless to say, I took a much needed shower and nap when I got back.

All-in-all a great weekend, but we missed just one ingredient: Carilee!