“Roughing” it

So here I am, two and a half hours from home, sitting outside next to a campfire in the middle of nowhere. I’m at my father in law’s land in the middle of the state, nineteen acres with a lake and woods. It’s our first overnight trip.

We’ve been out to the lake several times since he bought it a few months ago, but my girls don’t really know the meaning of roughing it, so we’ve always come down for short day trips. He bought an old RV last week, so this is our first overnight trip.

We ran into a bit of traffic on the way down here, we did leave at rush hour on Friday, but it wasn’t too bad. We spent the afternoon swimming in the lake, and I started a campfire so that we could roast hot dogs and smores.

There’s a small fire pit in front of me. When I first started building the fire up my FIL, E., told me that he had some diesel fuel that I could use. No thanks, I said, I used to be a Boy Scout, I know how to start a fire. I went about building up my fire pyramid: leaves on the bottom between two logs, lots of small twigs in the middle with another layer of one or two inch branches, with some small logs on top, and with a large, previously burned piece of wood on top to serve as charcoal. E. came back over as I was lighting it.

When you get tired of the Boy Scout stuff, I got some fire logs over here you can use. I just laughed at him. After a few minutes I had a roaring fire, and we had our roasted dogs and smores.

I’m kind of amused that I have internet here, my laptop connected to my cell phone’s LTE connection — thanks ATT. E just had electricity run out here, so I could literally stay here as long as I can stand it. I did bring my private keys with me, as I always do. I

When you get tired of the Boy Scout stuff, I got some fire logs over here you can use. I just laughed at him. After a few minutes I had a roaring fire, and we had our roasted dogs and smores.

I’m kind of amused that I have internet here, my laptop connected to my cell phone’s LTE connection — thanks ATT. E just had electricity run out here, so I could literally stay here as long as I can stand it. I did bring my private keys with me, as I always do. I’m not quite ready to live in an RV, I’ve still got too many material possessions, and the kids are much too sensitive, but this is a promising start.

Missus and Younger are sleeping in the RV along with her dad and his wife, I’m sitting down by the campfire next to the shed where Elder is sleeping. I’ll join her shortly. It smells like motor oil and gasoline in there, but I really don’t mind. There’s air conditioning in there.

I’ll wrap this up, pour some water on the fire and then go to sleep. Tomorrow after breakfast we’ll do some more swimming and head home before the sun gets too high that we need sunscreen. Right now it’s just me and the bullfrogs.

One of the main things that I was looking forward to was showing the girls what the stars look like outside of the city. We like to look at the sky at night, but usually the light pollution is so bright that we can only see Ursa Major or Orion. I was hoping that we could come out here and see the Milky Way in all its glory. Alas when the sun went down earlier, all we could see through the clouds was just one single star.

Now though, it’s cleared up, and even though my night vision is a bit ruined by my laptop screen, I can see more of them peeking out at me. I’m about to close the lid on this machine and give my eyes fifteen minutes to adjust.

Elder’s asleep in the shed, the light still on. I might just wake her up to take a look with me, and listen to the bullfrogs.

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