Camping and Recovery

Home away from home! It's supposed to be a treehouse but it is really a raised sleeping porch.

There are two things I really love about camping in the fall.  First, I love being outdoors all day long.  The weather isn't too hot, not too many bugs and it is perfectly comfortable to get up at 5:30 and drink coffee at the picnic table, hang out doing whatever you are doing, rest on the chaise lounge and read in the afternoon, prep and cook dinner over the camp stove, sit around the campfire talking and singing songs, hit the sleeping bag at around 9 or 9:30.  I think because I am too sedentary and stay indoors so much, there is something really exotic and exhilarating about that to me.  The other thing is food.  I have always liked eating al fresco but I really enjoy cooking outdoors too.  Which is crazy because I never go near my husband's grill at home.  He always does that cooking, but when I am at a campground, I seem to really enjoy cooking outdoors.

The lower campsite where most of the action happened.

The thing I don't like about camping are the lack of privacy and not really being able to sleep much in a sleeping bag.

Anyway, we had an adventurous weekend, with two girls cutting themselves just after the knife safety lesson and during their whittling project.  One had to go to urgent care and get two stitches and a tetanus shot.  I didn't take her though, one of the other leaders did.  She's the head leader and pretty much does everything for us.  And the next day we went hiking on the Appalachian Trail for 4 hours.  I kept protesting that the trail was marked as 'difficult' and I am not a hiker and in fact have plantar faciitus and arthritis.  But my co-leader assured me that we'd only go on the easy portion of the trail.  Hah, hah, hah!  It was easy for her, who has been hiking all her life!  For me it was treacherous.  I kept rolling my ankles and my knee started to ache.  She actually had a brace with her and I put that on my knee which made it better for a while.  I was so busy looking at the ground trying not to twist my ankle on all the rocks, that I barely took in the woods around me.  My hips began to ache also.  Did I mention we were in the mountains going up and down rocky inclines?  She was able to talk the whole time up and back!  It was a breeze for her.  I was really struggling, but one of the girls had a walking stick, so I used that and for the last hour, I swear that was the only thing that kept me from having to be airlifted off the trail.

Lunch break on the Appalachian Trail hike

I was so exhausted the next day and my leg hurt so much, I could barely move.  We left an hour earlier than planned and got home before noon.  I didn't make it to mass in the evening as I had planned.  I came down with some terrific stomach thing for about 4 painful hours that then vanished and then I slept for about 10 hours straight.  When I got up this morning, I felt like a new person!  I had so much energy and my leg didn't hurt.  Unfortunately, as the day progressed it did start to ache again.  But still!

View from my chaise lounge

My big hygge today was buying whole wheat sourdough bread from the bakery when it was fresh out of the oven and eating that for both breakfast and lunch!  I also joined a new CSA where I can also get milk and butter and other things besides produce.

And another big hygge was I planted a little herb garden from a kit I bought for myself!

Really blurry picture of my new herb garden.  The chives look pretty limp.