Camping Fun

Taylor had his first weekend off in about a month, so he chose to celebrate by taking us camping. Now, people have many different ideas of what constitutes "camping." For some, camping is taking an RV to a outdoorish area and basically enjoying all the amenities of home in the woods. For others, camping is driving up to a designated area and pitching a tent about twenty feet from your car. And for Taylor, camping is hiking for twelve hours into the middle of nowhere and then setting up camp, living off the fruits of the land. That is not my idea of camping. Fortunately for whimpy me, we could only find the "pitch your tent twenty feet from you car" kind of camping.

Now, I don't want to give the wrong impression. I was really looking forward to camping, just not the hiking in the wilderness part. Things started off really well. We got our camp site set up, a fire going, and then started carving our sticks for roasting hot dogs. My carving was going well, until I came across a stubborn knot in the wood. I slid the knife toward me (a major no no, I know). The knife bounced off the knot and right into my knuckle. I've never bled so much in my life before. I turned to Taylor and said "Um, Taylor, I need some help." Taylor was rather concerned because at this point my entire hand was covered in blood.

"Put pressure on it!"
"I am! But my hand is really gross, can't I wash it off?"
"No, hold your finger, now!"
We weren't able to get a picture of the event, as we were performing first aid, so here is a dramatic re-enactment.

We got the finger bandaged up, and everything went smoothly from there. Until I added some more logs to the fire. I felt a burn on my finger, and took my hand out from the fire pit. The pain, however, continue. It took me a couple seconds to realize my bandage was on fire. I threw the bandage off, and it flew like a flaming arrow into a pile of pine needles. After stomping out the pine needle fire, I tended my wounded finger with ice. It was rather pathetic.

That was the most dramatic thing that occurred. The rest of the trip went rather well. We definately plan on doing it again. Except for the severing my finger part.