and now we're back (well, one of us)

The camping was good, thank you for all your well wishes on our little mini vacation. Really, though, we were barely gone for twenty-four hours. And I'm beginning to think that we're not so into this whole car camping deal. I didn't grow up camping (except for occasionally pitching a tent in the backyard of my parents' country house, but I'm just not sure if that counts). The first real camping experience that I had was when I lived in Vermont during college. I later learned that the kind of camping that I did then, was really more "backpacking" than "camping." In Minnesota, camping tends to be almost like an alternative to staying in a motel. Your tent is just next to your car. Generally you have a huge tent. And bikes. And lots of food. Way more "stuff" than you would have if you had to carry everything to your campsite for a few miles. To me, it's kinda weird. But we did discover "cart-in camping" (literally, they give you a cart, not unlike a wheelbarrow, and you can wheel your stuff to a more secluded campsite), and we're thinking this might just be the path for us next time.

But alas, it was really nice to get away. We walked, we talked, we cooked, we ate, we slept, we read. The downer came just a few hours into the trip. After we had arrived and set up our tent. I decided we should go for a short hike. It turned out to be quite a steep (and quite wet and slippery) trail down to the Mississippi. Jared slipped and dropped the camera (and by the camera, I really mean his camera, despite my having staked a claim to it). The lens will not move. So, the baby is being shipped off to Canon tomorrow morning, hopefully to be returned in 10-14 business days fully restored. Luckily, I brought the old canon too.

Here are some of the photos from that first hike (more here). The rest are still in my camera, so I'll share those when they're ready. I was a bit disappointed with some of these photographs when I picked them up this afternoon. So I'm working on learning more about my camera and how to use it. Like, um, adjusting the aperture and shutter speed (seriously, guessing isn't really a good method. This is much better).

And now, Jared is off to San Francisco for a couple of weeks. And I've got myself some serious lists. I'm hoping to be pretty productive here on the homefront. So, until the return of the newer canon, things may be a bit slow here. I do have a couple of projects to share with you (and a garden update!), so I'll be back later this week.