Ramblings of a Misanthropic Geek

Camping

So I went camping in the mountains last weekend. It was a ton of fun. I go every year with my dad and some of my siblings and we meet up with a bunch of other families there. No moms are allowed so hygiene isn't really a priority. I've grown up with most of the kids so it's like one giant family... sorta. I'm one of the only teenage girls who still goes. My one friend (fading_light) usually goes but couldn't this year, so it was just me and my 16 year old friend Mary. Mary is a super-down to earth person who you can trust to tell you the truth and not be fake. Everyone else is a guy. Except for my 10 year old sister Becca and her three friends but they're annoying so they don't count. But I kid you not there are like 15 guys between the ages of 14 and 8.

So Luke is like 9 years old and the most adorable person to walk the earth (besides Patrick Stump of course). He's really sweet and I wish i could adopt him. He has an 11 year old brother named Fishface. No, that's not his birth name. That's what I call him (long story) and he hates me for it. There's another 11 year old boy whom I call Snowball (another long story). He very much hates me (it's sorta a love-hate relationship, though), and this will come into play later on in this post. Danny is also 11 and he's this sort of easy-going, laid back kid who I've known for a while. He's one of the only boys his age that go camping that can stand me. That's about it that you will need to know for people and backstories.

So my dad and I spent the entire two hour drive up to the mountains on Friday talking about World Wars I & II and Vietnam and what might cause World War III and economic warfare and China and Gorbachev vs. Reagan and stuff. This all probably sounds super lame to all of you. The thing is, since I took AP World History this year, I actually knew what I was talking about. It was a lot of fun (I sound like such a loser right now) and anyway moving on.

So Mary and I went on our annual hike later on Friday and took Luke and Snowball with us. Snowball naturally refused my help so it was a lot of fun to watch him fall in the river several times. I love going hiking (especially this specific one) because everything is so natural and it all feels like your special place. A lot of the stuff was actually pretty cool. There were these huge rock formations and you had to cross a lot of fallen logs to get from place to place.

Later on we roasted marshmallows over a campfire. Snowball announced that he wanted to wrap a towel around his head and jump out of the bushes pretending to be ISIS. I hope this doesn't offend anyone but it was hilarious. Sitting around a fire late at night when it gets cold is mesmerizing. Eventually Mary and I went to bed. We were in a tent with Becca which wasn't really a good idea because the thought of bugs scares Becca to death. Also her bladder is like the size of a pea so I have to take her to the bathroom constantly.

Saturday is always the fun day. After taking Becca and her friends on a quick hike, Mary and I traveled to another spot about 15 minutes away so we could hike to a waterfall. Since no one else in my family went, I rode in Snowball's car. We did a similar thing last year where me, fading_light, another of the boys, and the boy's dad were screaming along to 1D at the top of our lungs while Snowball curled into a tiny ball and tried to block out our terribly off-key singing.

Anyway so we hiked to this waterfall. It was maybe 15 feet tall and we had originally planned on jumping off of it but the dads were like yeah no. So instead we played on the rocks and the stream underneath the waterfall. We had to climb down a basically shear rockface to get there. I helped a lot of the kids down. Everything was super slippery so I took off my shoes and socks to help the kids across the rocks. The water was so cold that my feet were numb in minutes. This is what I mean by love-hate relationship: I'll help Fishface and Snowball out with things like crossing streams and climbing down cliffs and whatnot but in other situations we can be incredibly mean. Case in point: after falling in (oops) I decided to dry off. So I climbed down to grab Danny's and my shoes but couldn't climb back up holding them. So I tossed Danny's shoes up to where he was sitting next to the waterfall, along with one of my shoes. Snowball caught the other shoe and after looking me dead in the eye, dropped it off the waterfall.