Roughing it

This past weekend we went camping together for the first time—and it was a blast. After work on Friday we headed up to the Uintas with Justin's sister Caitlin and her boyfriend, Sean, whose family has a cabin and some land in the mountains that we camped on.

It was car camping at its finest. We had the tent, the fire, the log benches and all the other trappings of a classic campsite. And less than fifty yards away we had a refrigerator, a sink, and—most importantly—a bathroom. Even as one who would rather backpack through the wilderness eating dehydrated food and digging latrines, I (Justin) really enjoyed the setup we had. It was hard to beat. Check it out:

In the absence of a hammer, we used this large stick to pound in the stakes.

Our hot dog skewers were a little too short, but human ingenuity won out.

At night, we sat around the campfire, played cards, and checked out the stars. It's amazing how clearly you can see the Milky Way when you get away from the city lights. And in the morning, we had a tasty breakfast of hot chocolate, eggs, biscuits, gravy, and orange juice. There may have been a few cinders in the cocoa and eggs, but it's camp food, right?

Cooking eggs over the coals

Hot chocolate. Cheers!

The flies were particularly obnoxious and took a liking to Stephanie's hair for some reason. This was her solution:

After breakfast we took some time to explore our surroundings.

Drinking from a mountain spring

Caitlin and Sean at the river

And us—showing a lot of school spirit, apparently

Basically, we had a great time!