Ken and I love the outdoors. We used to hike and camp a lot. Then we sort of got out of it because it seemed like every weekend, between teenagers and church, we just had too much to do! Also, we always took Smokey with us. He was our camping dog! We never could train him not to pee in the house, but he never, ever peed in the tent! I’d clip him to my belt loop on his leash and he’d pull me up hills whenever we went hiking. Unfortunately, he broke his chain one day and he was hit by a car. I think we sort of lost interest in camping for a while, since he couldn’t go with us (and Lucy? In a tent? Yeah. Right. Not going to work!)
Now that it’s fall and that crisp smoky smell is back in the air, I’m longing for a tent and a campfire!
We’ll have to practically start over again with supplies – many of ours were just plain cheap to begin with, and so haven’t stood up to the years of hard use. One place I’m looking for supplies is Sierra Adventure Gear online.
They’ve got a good collection of tents, backpacks, camp tools, lanterns, knives, first aid equipment, safety and first aid needs, and so on. They also sell emergency food kits (which we here in hurricane+ice storm country should have on hand in case of prolonged power outage/being trapped at home).
One thing we love about camping is the wildlife. We’ve seen lots of deer and racoons! We haven’t seen a bear (that’s still alive) yet. We saw a poor dead bear that had been hit by a truck this last spring. I felt sorry for it. 
We might plan over the winter, then go and do an early summer expedition to Cape Lookout. Hmmmm…
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Ichabod
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Jules
