The camping trip . . .

We had a great time camping Easter weekend at South Mountain State Park. We drove up Friday morning and came back Saturday afternoon, so it was a quick trip; but still was a lot of fun. Spartacus did great on the hike (we tucked his leash into his backpack in case we needed to grab it if we passed by other hikers, but for the majority of the time, he followed right behind Greg just like a pack dog) and all of us loved the campsite . . . once we found it. The trails didn't match up to the trail map that the park provided, so we hiked about a mile down a wrong trail, got back to the main trail and kept thinking that we'd come up on the campsite any minute now . . . really it should be right here . . . ok, just a little further, I'm sure . . . but we came to where the trail dead ended and still, no sign of our campsite. So we turned around and hiked back about about a mile and, lo and behold, the sign for the trail to the campsite was face down in a pile of leaves! Finally finding the campsite was a joyous moment for sure. It's funny how those extra few miles seemed a lot longer with 25 lbs on your back.

But the site was beautiful and worth the wait, there was about 2 1/2 cleared acres with a stream near by-ish. It's acutally set up for 3 different groups to camp and a couple hours after we set up, another group from a church here in Charlotte showed up and we got to spend some time with them, which was really fun. A couple of those guys are serious backpackers, so we spent a good amount of time comparing equipment with them.

About 4 in the morning a 3rd group showed up . . . without sleeping bags or tents (just a pile of blankets) but with a large amount of alcohol. Spartacus was not too cool with that and ended up chewing a rather large hole in the side of his tent so that he could stand guard. We woke up to find him shaking in the cold outside of his tent. I would have felt bad for him, except he was sitting right next to his warm tent which he had chewed a whole in so that he could sleep in the cold.

I could also tell stories about me accidentally dumping out Greg's just-finished-cooking pot of ramens or about Spartacus sneaking off with Greg's makeup dinner of a granola bar or how the guys in the other group we camped with (the nice group) offered to buy Spartacus because he was such a great trail dog but the post is already a little long . . .

Spartacus at our lunch stop

The sign marking our campsite . . . How Spartacus looked when we put him to bed
Where we found him when we woke up
(we were a little too upset to get pictures of the actual whole, and Greg has since repaired it with duct tape)