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sticks-and-stone · 1 year

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Crescent Lake Conservation Area

September 16, 2022 through September 18, 2022

Three months had passed since the Dutton Island overnight trip and our lives changed so much. I moved out of my second floor apartment, canceled my storage unit, and moved into a single story house with a two car garage. Jenna laid her father to rest, got a new job, and fell into a good routine. Naturally, after months of real life being hectic, we were more than ready for another camping trip.

I went on to the St. Johns River Water Management District website and found an opening at the Crescent Lake Conservation Area. This was a new one for us, but I picked it because it was only about an hour and half away. My new place is about 15 minutes from Jenna’s house now, so traveling to and from camping trips became much easier.

We both worked full work days on Friday so I met her at her house when we both got off and we departed from there. It took us closer to 2 hours to get there due to some traffic and frequent stops, but we finally arrived at the gate at about 8:30pm. After dark, as usual. On our way out there we kept stopping to look for some place to buy firewood. We had very little luck and had given up on it entirely when we came across a Winn Dixie. We walked inside and they had a huge pallet of bagged firewood on sale! This was our first good omen. Jenna and I tend to ride the vibes for camping pretty well. We keep a good attitude and good luck seems to come our way. This trip would be no different. Maybe even luckier than normal. The camping gods were on our side helping us celebrate the 3rd anniversary of our camping adventures!

Once we got to the gate at the campsite, Jenna struggled to get it open so I took a crack at it and got it on the first try. Another good omen. The campsite was positioned about two miles from the gate along this long winding path just wide enough for my car. Once we arrived we saw the port-a-potty first and then a giant opening with a centralized fire pit surrounded by 4 benches, a standing grill, and a huge pavilion with 3 picnic tables and a fireplace. This place was stunning even in the dark.

We pulled up next to the pavilion and before we even had time to get out of the car, Jenna said “there are lights in here!”. Our third, and most amazing good omen. We got out of the car and found the light switch at the back wall. We flipped the switch and the entire building illuminated. Right below the switch was an electrical outlet. This free campsite had full electricity! And here we were without the Electric Gear Box.

Ecstatic about our discovery, we were no longer stressed about arriving after dark. We took our time unloading the car and setting up. Jenna started with the fire, as that is her specialty while I unloaded the bins from the car and started organizing our space in this pavilion. It rained the whole time we were unloading, but it bothered us none. We were already so in love with this site and we had full cover from the rain.

One of the tasks for this weekend was finding a decent bug repellent, so I laid them all out on one of the tables and started testing them out. The lights of the pavilion attracted plenty of bugs so I had an easy time figuring out which ones worked and which ones didn’t. We used these incense stick things propped up in an empty monster energy drink can. Those worked the best. But we also had an assortment of sprays, lotions, and roll-ons.

Jenna had a hard time getting the fire started in the fireplace, so I took over while she started hanging her hammock between the posts of the pavilion. She was testing out a new sleep system this weekend as well. She has really taken to hammocking over the past year or so.

At first, I had the fire going really well, but eventually I over-aerated it like I usually do and it went out. In frustration, I gave up. Jenna finished her hammock and took back over the fire and I got to work on my own sleep system. I was staying in my hiking tent since the cabin tent was still broken from my party weekend at Dutton Island, 3 months prior. I had never set up my tent on concrete and I had to get creative about staking it down. I ran paracord from the corners and staked them down in the ground outside the pavilion and tied a few off to tables inside. This looked okay and worked fine, but proved to be a bad idea later. What I should have done was set up outside the pavilion and hang my tarp over me for rain protection. I learned a good lesson.

Once we got our tents and beds all set up, we sat at one of the picnic tables and pulled out our playing cards. Jenna spent the next hour or so kicking my ass in gin. Defeated, humbled, and exhausted, I retired to my tent. Jenna climbed up into her hammock soon after. I saw a couple of gnats in my tent, but they came in while I was crawling in. The tent itself did a great job keeping out the bugs.

Jenna realized deep into the night that the poles she hung her hammock from were too close together. She ended up sleeping basically folded in half and nearly touching the ground.

I awoke the next morning at about 7:15 without an alarm. My need to pee usually wakes me up while we’re camping. I’ve never needed an alarm. I attempted to use the port-a-potty but was startled by a tree frog trapped in there with me. I wouldn’t use it again the entire weekend. I don’t think that Jenna used it either. It was gross and in a private campsite like this one with no neighbors, relieving ourselves wouldn’t be an issue.

Once I was back at our pavilion, I pulled out the kettle and single burner butane attachment and started on my coffee. I also made hot lemon water to help warm me up. It wasn’t cold, but it was chillier in the morning than I had planned for. I brought my laptop along this time to try and get some writing done, so I pulled that out and by 8am I was typing away, working on camping trip reflections from the months passed.

I was up and writing for about an hour when Jenna woke up. Though I enjoyed the time to myself and my writing, I was grateful when she woke up! We chatted for a little bit and she helped me fill in a couple of blanks in my memory from our trips of the past. I took a break from writing to make myself some pancakes. Jenna opted for a protein bar.

On a whim, we decided to see how close a spring was to our campsite. As it turned out, we were about 30 minutes from the Ocala National Forest which is home to 3 of my favorite springs! We decided on Juniper Springs since it had great hiking and Jenna had never been. So we packed up only what we needed and took off!

We got to the park, paid the fee for day passes, and immediately hit the trails. We wanted to beat the forecasted rain. Before we started on the trails, we walked through the old water mill museum that they had onsite. The best trail started behind the mill, but there were maintenance guys there with the access blocked off, forcing us to go around the trail that runs through the campground there. We hiked for just a couple of miles and checked out Juniper Springs Campground. It is definitely on my wish list for camping.

Once we had our hearts’ fill of hiking, we came back to the car to cool off and had a quick snack. It started sprinkling a bit, but since we were off the trail, we didn’t really mind. We walked over to the restrooms and changed into our bathing suits. The air was chilly and damp, but we were going to swim in this spring no matter what.

We swam for only long enough to cool our bodies down and then booked it out of there as the rain began to fall more heavily. We dried off by the car as best we could and then just laid towels on our seats and rode back to camp in damp bathing suits. As soon as we left the park the rain stopped and we were able to open up the windows and air-dry on the way back to the campsite.

Once we arrived back at camp about mid-afternoon, Jenna got the fire going again and moved her hammock to the other side of the campsite between two trees. She struggled for a while to find the right spot and even the one she settled on gave her tons of problems. One thing about Jenna is that once she sets her mind to something, she gets it done. Getting this hammock up in a better spot was no different.

While she worked on her sleep system, I worked on mine. I didn’t want to sleep in a rigged up hiking tent when it functions far better when anchored into the ground as designed. So I worked on getting it taken down so that I could move it to the field next to the trees where Jenna was setting up.

The heaviest of the rain had passed us, but we were still expecting a small amount in the wee hours that night. My hiking tent is advertised as fully rain-proofed and I was excited to put that to the test. But that didn’t matter because as I was un tying it from the picnic table that it was anchored to, the top cross-over pole snapped clean in half. There was no way I was going to set it up to full functionality now.

Luckily, Jenna still carried her hiking tent in her backpack and I was able to borrow it. So got that set up and put my sleeping pad and bag inside and covered it in the rain fly. This tent had already proven to keep Jenna dry during rainy nights, so I was grateful for the security but incredibly bummed about my tent.

Dinner time was approaching so we left our sleep systems to go back to the pavilion (about 50 yards away) and started working on food. We brought the smoldering fire back to a blaze and I got back out the laptop and started back into writing. I made it through 3 camping trip reflections on this trip and I am never camping (at least car camping) without my laptop again.

Jenna cooked a sloppy joe Hellofresh meal that Laura had sent home with me earlier that week. Probably a top 3 meal that I’ve had while camping if I’m being honest. We have cultivated a near-perfect kitchen system in our car camping gear that there isn’t much limit to what we can make for a meal.

Several trips back we decided to stop over-planning and overpacking for our meals at camp. Instead, we have switched to just planning on one big meal, typically Saturday night, and just snacking around the other meal times. I’ll still bring pancakes cuz they’re easy, but no more of the eggs-bacon-full lunch spread-huge dinner-second-breakfast deal. Now it’s simplified, far less expensive, less wasteful, and usually far higher quality. One of the many ways this trip helped us prove our skills that we had cultivated over the last three years.

I cleaned up after dinner and wrote for another hour or so, but became exhausted very quickly. I retired to my tent (Jenna’s tent) by 9pm and was asleep soon after.

I remember waking up quite frequently that night. I was nervous about bears for some reason. I just couldn’t shake the thought of one wandering up to camp, trying to get into my car or god forbid my tent. Jenna was within ear shot but this was the farthest apart that we’d set up our tents. So her presence wasn’t felt and the sinking feeling of being alone was. I must have been able to shake it, because I don’t remember anything else until I woke up at 3am with the sudden urge to pee. The pavilion (and the spot behind the solid wall where I had been doing my business earlier in the day and the night before) felt a million miles away. So I just stepped 20 paces away from the tent and squatted right out in the open and complete dark.

The next morning I was up by 730. This time, I didn’t write or make coffee, I just pulled the tent and its contents to the pavilion and began the process of cleaning and packing away gear. Jenna joined me soon after and wordlessly, nearly effortlessly, we repacked the gear, exchanged the items we usually end up swapping on accident (or in the case, borrowed tents), and got the car organized in a matter of an hour.

This is an impressive feat because normally I spend Sundays re-itemizing the gear lists and moving gear around from one bin to another. Sometimes I do away with bins all together and consolidate others, but this time felt very different. I didn’t change a thing. For once, there was no instance during the camping trip that made me think I could pack something better. The only thing I changed was how I separate the check lists out by type of camping:

Summer Primitive

Summer Glamping

Winter Primitive

Winter Glamping

Backpacking

The type of camping that we’re going to be doing will dictate which bins we bring. For example, summer primitive camping means we’re going to be camping somewhere without electricity when it's warm outside. So I don’t need to bring the electric gear bin or my sleeping bag, but I will bring a sleeping bag liner or a top sheet instead. But the summer glamping type would mean we do have electricity, so I'll bring the electric gear but still use a sheet instead of a sleeping bag. The gear works basically the same in the winter, but I would bring a sleeping bag and for the winter glamping trips: a heater. The backpacking type is just that. The hiking backpack.

The hiking backpack contains a lot of core gear including my hiking tent, so it comes on all the trips. Primitive and Glamping just means we can bring the car to the site, so we can carry the bins that are needed for that weekend. I like this system a lot. I hope it sticks.

Happy and content with our re-introduction into the forest, we hit the road to go home by 8:30. We stopped at Dunkin for a celebratory breakfast and iced coffee - our favorite way to reintegrate back into society. I had Jenna home by 10 and myself home by 10:30. It took me no time at all to unload the already-organized bins from my car to their spot in the garage. I emptied the contents of the cooler into my fridge and put the now thawed ice packs back in the freezer. I started doing laundry before taking a shower and a well-earned nap.

This was the most satisfying feeling I had felt after a camping trip in a very long time. Reflecting on it brings me much joy and encouragement to keep going. I feel like the stress around camping that I was experiencing had a lot to do with my living arrangements and how difficult it was to pack and unpack from trips. It may have also been the frustration of getting my packing system JUST right. And the satisfaction of feeling like I have finally, after 3 years, accomplished that felt unbelievably gratifying. I am excited for the trips ahead of us. I finally feel like we are entering a new stage of our camping adventures.

Stay Dirty,

Stone.

#camping #carcamping #primitivecamping #tent #hammockcamping #SJRWMD #springs #JuniperSprings

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