Our First Camping Trip

Wooo! There's nothing like a long weekend to revitalize you. And there's nothing like skipping right to Tuesday to start out a week.

Mike and I celebrated Labor Day weekend in true Wisconsin style by finding the nearest lake and not moving til Monday. Early Saturday morning we made our way to Stone Mountain Campground, about an hour outside of Atlanta. 

Luca always obliges to family car pictures.

We got to work setting up the tent. The weather was beautiful and sunny but very, very hot and humid. 

First time setting up this tent and we got a compliment from out site neighbors on how quickly we got it up.

One thing I learned this weekend: hot, humid weather and bangs are not a winning combo. Those bad boys were pinned back within an hour of arriving and stayed there the rest of the trip.

Good thing I brought extra bobby pins.

Once we got everything set-up, we took a look around and realized that we had the best site of any that we could see. Later we drove around the campground a bit and further confirmed that we hit the campsite jackpot. We had a beautiful view of the lake from out tent pad. The best part was the secondary campfire ring right by the water. It was like a mini-lakehouse just for us. All we needed was a pontoon :)

Chillin' at our mobile lakehouse.

Sunday morning I attempted to sleep-in. Unfortunately Mike woke up to a completely deflated mattress. Womp womp... but we had a spare in the car that ended up working perfect for night two. To help recover from the whole waking up on the ground incident I made Campfire Cinnamon Rolls.

Good morning, Delicious.

The process is pretty easy. All you need is a pudgy pie iron (we have this double duty one) and a roll of pre-made cinnamon rolls. Since we were only going to use the fire for cooking, we opted for a bed of charcoal instead of a full blown campfire. To make the rolls, you simply spray the pie iron with nonstick cooking spray. Place on a roll or two depending on the size of your pie iron. Then cook for 3-4 minutes on each side. We both prefer ours on the doughy side and took them off once the rolls were golden brown.

Throughout our relationship Mike and I have always had this almost magical ability to be in the right place at the right time. We'll get in a line that is two people long and by the time were are through it will have 10 people in it. We'll show-up to restaurants and be seated immediately only to hear the next couple be told it will be a 20 minute wait. This weekend was no different. We were randomly assigned to the BEST campsite, and Sunday afternoon when the clouds started rolling in we got everything safely moved undercover and had just settled-in for some mancala in the tent when the first drops fell. 

We had mancala and Harry Potter on tape to keep us entertained.

The rain cleared up in time for a campfire Sunday night. After about an hour of discouragement  we finally got a nice fire roaring through the use of our neighbor's leftover firewood. Who'd have thought that the wood that was out in the rain would work better than the bundle we kept in car??

Luca was being weird about the lying on the ground. Tent box to the rescue!

During the campfire debacle we noticed a lot of other campers packing up and heading out. We took a look at the forecast and found out that thunderstorms were expected early the next morning, We seriously debated packing up and heading home too, but decided to stick it out and try our luck. Moments later the fire got going, and the next morning we were driving out of the campground when the first drops started to fall.

Here's to being in the right place at the right time!