It was cold. Really cold. Now I know why stories of pioneer life mention people going to bed just to get warm.
Last year we had tickets to the Lake Eden Arts Festival in mid October in Black Mountain, NC. Of course, the Great Leg-Breaking put that plan aside for the year. Therefore, we still had tickets left over. They were burning a hole in our collective pocket. That was the last warm idea we had.
Every other time we’ve camped there, it has rained. No, not this time. It was too ever-lovin’ cold. It would have snowed, if that had been the case! Because we were camping in a big meadow, there was no electricity. So there was no hope of even a small space heater. Just two wonderful sleeping bags — rated to 20 degrees. I grabbed my book and little reading light to hunker down inside the bag and read, hoping the little light would put out some more heat. Bruce kept saying, “I can’t hear you.” Of course not, my head was stuffed inside a flannel lined bag. Poor Bruce is too tall to crunch down inside. He had to use the flannel blanket we brought as an after-thought to cover his head.
The next morning I went to boil water for our coffee and found ice in the kettle. Again — what were we thinking?
This was our swan song for cold weather camping. Now that our brains have thawed out, we’re finally thinking again.
