10 things we learnt from camping in the U.P.

Miner's Castle, Pictured Rocks, MI.
Originally uploaded by jyew.

So we came home a day early- well, technically not a day since we left the campsite past 9pm last night and drove through the misty, foggy night to get home at 3am this morning. We didn't get to bed till 5am... The weather was just too dreary to stay an extra night- we would have been stuck in our tents while it poured outside and we didn't want to deal with the yuckiness of packing up in the rain. And with high humidity and no wind, we would have been bug fodder in no time...

Nonetheless, all in all, it was a good trip, shower or no shower. It was great just hanging out with Rick, Emilee & Kumo, and the U.P. was gorgeous! A kind of rugged, untouched beauty I had never associated with Michigan. A shout-out to Ms. Anderson! We thought of you Melanie, although we didn't get a chance to go as far north as Sault Ste. Marie :) The U.P. rocks!

Some lessons we learnt:
1) We are sorely under-prepared for camping. If we're going to do more of this camping thing, we're going to have to spend way more time at R.E.I. How are we supposed to know that a simple sports pocket bucket would make all the difference between cleaned dishes and clean dishes??
2) When you're obsessed enough, even a camping trip becomes one extended Lost moment...
3) Everything tastes better cooked over an open fire- pork chops, franks, hot dog buns, marshmallows, potatoes, etc. I swear, if we had boiled water over the campfire, that would have tasted better too...
4) I like S'mores (which I had never had before). Ummm... that ultra-sweet, ooey, toasty, chocolatey, crunchy yumminess...)
5) Pyromaniacs are born when their friends systematically teach them how to build good campfires and they then spend the rest of the night throwing every possible thing into the fire to "just see what happens..."
6) Thankfully, even in our thirties, there are still things in this world that can take our breath away. (See Pictured Rocks)
7) There's nothing like using water freshly pumped from a well to wash up early in the morning.
8) The U.P. is sorely under-rated as a travel destination. There's so much to see and appreciate, and I'm not just talking about Mackinac Island and the people who gather there every year for the annual Somewhere In Time conventions...
9) Give my husband a beer, a deck chair and a quiet beach, and he can sit there forever.
10) I can survive three days without a shower. But just barely.

For more about the trip and the U.P., here are the photos.