Camping and Canoeing

One of the perks of having less trips planned this year is having long weekends to spend in the outdoors! 

Zach’s parents live on a huge slice of tree filled land with a stream in it. Sooooo he had the idea to spend the night building a campfire from nothing and camping in the woods (like he did when he was growing up!). 

I love all of these things, so we went! We brought hot dogs and beer.  

Anddddd hammocks and sleeping bags. And an axe. 

And that was about it! A few odds and ends. But no camp stove or tent or amazing array of foods. 

When we got there we had to find a spot on allllllllllll the land that we could have both a fire and trees that we could hang our hammocks on. 

We sweated SO SO SO SO much for the next four hours. 

Chopping and clearing trees and brush in the forest.  

We camped in our hammocks, bug nets, and Zach put up his Kammock Kulhi Shelter. 

Sleeping pads and bags and that was it!  

We played around in the stream for awhile and roamed the fields looking for brush and twigs. 

I brought my new foraging bag! And found some stream side pretty things :)

We chopped and gathered and built this fire. Actually, Zach mostly built it. He’s good at this stuff, I’m just learning it all. 

We spent the next four or five hours watching the sun go down on the top of the hill we ALMOST got married on. 

We roasted dogs, drank a couple of beers, and fell asleep next to the fire. 

Okay but then we moved and slept in our hammocks. And heard alllllllll of the sounds of the forest all night.

We woke up to a SYMPHONY of morning animal calls. So many birds and animals just HOWLING (chirping) all at once in their own tones.

It was beautiful. 

We packed up! Had a little breakfast at the house and loaded up our canoe. 

It was, ya know, 95 degrees. But we strapped it all up and drove to a nearby lake.  

It was so hot. 

I just paddled Zach around for a couple of hours while he fished! I got to zoom through all the dead trees and get up next to the shoreline. And watch the fish dart underneath the surface. 

He caught ALL THE BASS. And a crappie. it was gooood fishing! 

Best part of all of our outdoor weekends is the small town goldmines. We stopped at Drew’s Chocolate in Dexter. Got the whole story. In the same basement since early 1900s, made from Swiss chocolate, hand dipped every day. 

Basically I never want packaged chocolates again.  

Outdoors are best. Sweat and hard work and quiet and time together is worth it. 

Hope you had the best long weekend!  

-Emily