Sunday, June 10, 2012

Suburban camping

My schedule and family life have been crazy lately, but I needed to get out and spend a night under the stars. The mission was to find some wooded area right here in the suburbs, not marked with "no trespassing" or other such verbiage.  Since I was staying close and I knew I'd be off-roading, I opted to load up Frank for this trip. I didn't take many pictures, mostly because I really felt like shutting down all the parts of my brain that had anything to do with electronics.

I started with some fishing on the way out at a spot close to home. I caught bluegill by the dozen, and brought in the biggest red-eared slider I've ever seen (not even close to the size of a snapper, but big for a slider). I threw them all back in.

fishing

Then, I was off to find that perfect spot. I've been doing a lot of Google Maps Recon and I had a bunch of ideas for places to go. This seemed like a good place to set up camp for the night, despite being able to hear a deck party going on at a nearby $800,000 home.
site

Even before the sun was all the way down, it was getting pretty dark in the area I'd chosen. I only had one bottle of water with me, and I'd powered through most of it already. I went to a nearby stream with my water filter, got enough water for the rest of the trip, heated up dinner then called it a night.
stove

It was a really short trip. I don't know if I'll use the same spot ever again but there are many others nearby to try. I needed it, though.