Chris came over for the weekend. Friday we drove over to the Blue Ridge Pkway and did the Three Ridges Loop. It was a bit more difficult than I thought it was going to be. It being 14+ miles instead of the ~10 I was thinking, and I had read it was hilly, but it was HILLY! Constant up or down.
We hiked a few miles on Friday and then found a camp site. We set up the tent and hammock and then started gathering wood for a fire. We almost gave up on having a fire, but after a solid hour of trying with a combination of dryer lint, water proof matches, and propane stove, we finally got things dry enough to continue burning. Seeing how house fires start with dryer lint, I thought it'd be useful starting a camp fire, but I was wrong. It was a very poor fire starter. I think I'll go with some fire sticks or something a little more proven.
We cooked a sweet potato and some peppers and onions which was dinner in addition to an energy bar. The sweet potato turned out really nicely and I'll definitely do that again. I was actually surprised just how well and evenly it cooked just by being in the fire pit and being rolled around every once in a while.
Saturday we woke up with the sun and leisurely packed up and cooked breakfast. I was hoping to try cooking bacon in the fire pit, but after having so much trouble getting the fire started the night before, and since there wasn't even a warm ember left in the morning, we cooked bacon in my camping pot on the little stove. It worked okay. I still want to try cooking it in the fire this fall.
We started hiking around 9:15am, and finally got back to the car just before 5pm. As I said, the hike was hilly, as in we hiked uphill for what seemed like the entire day. Needless to say the three of us (Me, Chris and Maddog) were exhausted. Completely beaten and nearly broken, we went out to dinner and tried to watch a movie, but called it a night early. On Sunday we sat around and gorged ourselves stupid. I made a big breakfast, then we actually got up and went to Chipotle for lunch, had chips and salsa and cookies ALL afternoon, finished off by a flank steak and veggies and more cookies and hot cocoa with Rumple Minze.
Congrats to all of us for surviving the weekend, and a bigger congrats to Dr. Chris Lasher for finishing his PhD!
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