RJ Ramblings

Hey guys! 

I know I've talked in the past about my goals to go hiking and eventually long distance backpacking. I'm slowly taking steps towards making that happen. A couple weeks ago, I hiked the longest amount I've ever hiked in a day (8.5 miles). Last night, I camped outside for the first time since I was a kid. 

We went to the park, set up the tent, and then explored. We climbed across those rocks, climbed up to the cave there and went in. There wasn't much to see inside, but it was still fun. We swam in the lake a bit. Hiked about 3 miles around a trail. Saw a bunch of bunnies, an armadillo, and a huge fish that I think must have been an alligator gar, just below the surface. Lounged on some rocks near the water. Then we cooked dinner. We tried some backpacking meals, instead of bringing food to prepare and cook. Since this was sort of an experiment for future backpacking trips, we packed fairly light. We boiled water using the little backpackers stove and ate the freeze-dried dinners. Mango had Chicken Fettucine Alfredo, which honestly was amazing. I had Chicken Teriyaki Rice, which was not near as good. 

Then we watched the sunset. It was very calm and pretty and I had a great day. 

Then night came, haha. That was not as fun. We slept on small inflatable mattresses with our sleeping bags in the tent. Had an inflatable pillow as well (that was my least favorite thing about the setup). It was also really hot until around 2am, making us both sweaty and kinda uncomfortable. Throughout the night, we heard a lot of wildlife moving around. Something was chewing close to our tent. I think it must have been a bunny or a squirrel or something. Then later, I woke up to the noise of something larger moving in the trees just a few feet away from our tent. I think it must have been a deer or maybe a coyote. We couldn't ever see it though. 

I barely slept any from when we turned off the lights at 9pm until around 4am. I drifted in and out a bit, but never quite fell completely asleep. Then I slept hard from 4am to 7am. Despite probably only getting around 5 hours of sleep, I feel pretty good right now and mostly rested. 

So we woke up afterwards, made coffee, then packed up everything and went back home. Just one night out there, but I feel like I learned a lot and can make adjustments to things to make next trip a little more comfortable. Overall though, we had a great time. It wasn't the most pleasant night of sleep we've ever had, but I didn't hate it either. And everything before it got dark was so nice. 

So, other than my little one-night camping trip, I haven't really done much outside of work this week. We've been preparing for this for a while. We're planning on going on a couple of longer camping trips as well. Maybe a weekend in a couple weeks at the beginning of October, then a longer one at the beginning of November. Neither of these will be full backpacking trips, just car camping, but we're getting some experience and enjoying ourselves quite a bit. 

I guess that's all I have to talk about today! I hope you all have an amazing week. Thanks for supporting me! Love ya!