Backpacking?

I'd never thought I'd see this day.

This day where I'm packing my clothes in a backpack.

This day where I'm thinking about what to eat for dinner while in the woods.

This day where I'm looking at backpacker.com.

I am going backpacking with Geo.

Yes, I said it. Backpacking!

When I told Mary, she said, "Are you sure?"

When I told my Mom, she said, "Backpacking?"

When I told my Dad, he laughed.

They were all shocked.

Nonetheless, I'm still excited about it, despite their reservations. Well, excited/nervous!  This will be just a little bit different than any past experiences that I've had camping.

I have always camped at a place where my car is close and we could get inside of it for heat or air conditioning. When we got hungry, we could drive to Taco Bell for dinner and McDonald's for breakfast. Instead, we will carry all of our food in backpacks, including the water and food and everything to go with it. We'll sleep in tents in the middle of the woods with BEARS. (I'm hoping they'll be hibernating.) No cars nearby with cushioned seats. There will be no community bathrooms, just trees.

It should be interesting.

I'm really nervous about not being able to go to sleep because I never can when I hear coyotes barking at night. I've stayed awake all night before because of those dang coyotes.

My last camping experience went like this: Two years ago, the middle of October. It was a beautiful day, and Aunt Anne G was staying in Gatlinburg, so I went to visit her and Uncle Paul. Cale and El and some friends were camping at Cade's Cove and asked Mary and me to come stay. Aunt Anne G said we could stay in their hotel room if we wanted to. Dumb decision--we chose to stay at Cade's Cove because we were too tired to drive back to the hotel. We though we were going to sleep more at the camp site; I'm not sure why. To this day, I'm just not sure why we did that. The temperature dropped from the 70s during the day to below freezing at night. AND, there weren't enough sleeping bags for everyone. Plus, it had been warm that day and I didn't have any warm clothes on.

Ends up, Mary and I slept pretty much on top of each other with a couple of blankets in freezing (literally) weather, on the tent floor with about 9 girls in the tent and I was on the side and had dew all over me when I woke up.

I'm pretty sure that as soon as it got light, I walked straight to my car and drove home.

There was nothing fun about that night, and I vowed never to do that again.

This is different though, this backpacking trip I'm going on. We have sleeping bags and the guys sound like they are preparing in advance. I'm packing warm clothes and fuzzy socks and Xanax (just kidding.)

But really, I am excited to be in the outdoors in this beautiful weather, and we will see how I like backpacking. Let's hope I like it! I'll report back after.