this past wednesday was my sister’s birthday, and we went camping at a relatively local state park. we’ve camped there several times, and it’s always been very nice.

we did large group camp outs there while i was in middle/high school, but those fell apart around my sophomore year. last year, we decided that mom needed some back to nature time because she missed going to Summerstar. so we went camping at Scenic Beach in October.

it wasn’t the first time we were rained on there. one year when we were doing the large group camping, we were flooded the first day we were there. half of us left for civilization, and the weather cleared up.

it was chill, and damp, but all around a nice time. we made it down to the beach one day of the trip. it was drizzling, and the tide was in, so we didn’t spend much time there.

the camping gear never made it out of mom’s car. it’s been there since we packed up in the drizzle.

both times camping last year were three people, but for the sib’s birthday, we had all four of us. Quill was boarded at his groomers’, who he and Lila stayed with back in 2017 when we went to AZ for Yule. ((sidenote: sib did the hard thing of cancelling Lila’s stay, since she was also to be boarded for the camping trip. i don’t think i could’ve done it without breaking down, but fae was a rock for me.)) four people meant we needed another tent/cot/sleeping bag, and another canopy for the tent to attach to.

we have the very easy to set up “4 person” ConnecTent for straight leg canopies, which is actually just big enough for two people if they don’t use cots. supposedly, the tent is 9’x7′, but if that were true, two cots would be able to fit in perpendicular to the door. one cot fits, and it has to be parallel to the door. this was a pretty severe problem at Summerstar, since we only had two tents, and thought two cots would fit in one. i had a breakdown after a stressful day there, but we knew better for the next time.

so, October, we had one site, the straight leg canopy, and tents attached on three of the four sides. we also have a slant leg canopy that we covered the kitchen area with. it worked well for the site we were in, but we wanted a little more space this time, so we booked a double site so mom and nonna could have their space, and sib and i could have our space. we decided that we would set the kitchen up at mom and nonna’s site, since mom usually does the cooking.

this time around, the weather was beautiful. there was nary a cloud in the sky. it’s prime mosquito season, so we had those to contend with, but mosquito coils did wonders. it was hot, getting to the upper 80s on wednesday, and either upper 70s or low 80s the rest of the week.

the park was beautiful as always. i’ve never been there in the summer before, just at the turn of autumn and mid autumn last year. it felt different, but i liked it.

my goal was to find a rock for Lila’s cairn, and do some arts and crafts. i did both. i don’t have pictures of either, but i found two very good rocks for the cairn, and some other rocks that needed to come home with us, and i made some lanyard stuff for water bottles and started a pride friendship bracelet (one of four).

wednesday, we were joined for a bit by old friends, most of whom we hadn’t seen in over a decade. it was nice, though. they are still the same people they were the last time we saw them, and talking was easy. it takes energy to be social, and some people drain that energy faster. these drain it faster. even though it was a small social setting and very casual, i was happy to have our space back.

i realized that i needed to take some pictures to clear Lila’s funeral from my most recent uploads so that i wasn’t smacked in the face with my sweet baby every time i opened the uploads folder, so here’s some pictures i took.