****Updated With Video*****

I went tent camping for first time in my life.  You probably can guess that I’m not much of an outdoorswoman.  In fact, a few months after I met my future-husband, I asked him if he wanted to go camping in New Hampshire with my college girlfriends and their boyfriends.  He was excited and said he’d love to and he’d bring his tent.  I looked at him befuddled and asked why he needed a tent when we’d be stay in a condo.

Recently, some friends asked us to go camping with them.  I thought about it for a week.  Bugs, public bathrooms, dirt, sleeping on the ground, and no electricity seemed incredibly daunting!  Of course, hubby was totally excited about going camping for the first time in a dozen years.  Ug!  In the end, I decided I like adventures.  I like challenges.  I like doing scary things sometimes.  And I can do anything for a weekend.

Below is a timeline of my camping adventure that I started when I realized I got cell service at the camp site.  It was done via my iPhone so it’s very rudimentary! I was updating as often as time and friends’ tolerance would allow.  Now that I’m home, I’m adding and amending on my laptop so you have a complete picture of my camping trip.

12:01a (Saturday) Arrive at camp site. Hubby and friend empty our car, drop me off and drive off to park the car. I stand there confused. Other friend, Paco, offers me a beer! I can do that.

(The reason hubby and I arrived after midnight on Saturday was that I had to work Friday night.  But our friends set up camp for hubby and me so we wouldn’t have to do it in the dark!)

12:10a I need to change out of work clothes. They hand me a flashlight but I can’t find ‘door’ to our tent.

(This is when I discovered I had cell service and that blogging about my first tent camping trip, stealthy, might  be fun!)

12:19a Eating and chatting. No campfire tonight. I’m told we don’t have a fire permit yet.

12:20a I have been told (scolded) to put away my phone! Bye!

12:57a Getting ready for bed. Bathroom is decent! Yeah!!!

1:17a Getting ready to hit the sack. We don’t have sleeping bags. We’re on some blankets. Wish me luck. Here’s a look inside our tent. Well, that’s just all my stuff.

1:27a Hubby is tolerating my Kindle reading.

5:23a Nature; she is loud!

5:46a Can’t go back to sleep. Sun is rising. Crows are chatting. All sorts of critters are ready for the day.

5:54a Read Facebook posts on my camping experiences. Friends are finding it humors and silly. Most think the blogging is too much!!!

5:56a Maybe I’ll try the sleep thing again. (Didn’t work!)

8:10a So far I’ve brushed my teeth, packed for the beach, went and got coffee, and tried charging my phone (with apparatus I had for our international travels). Other campers in our group are still asleep!! Wake up!! Wake up! Wake up!

8:18a We hear a crash and see a biker has crashed. We rush to scene. He says he’s broken his shoulder. Called 911 and his family. Waited with him till ambulance came.

11:39p Arrived at beach at 9:30a. No cell service. In short, we spent 14 hours sunning ourselves, eating, riding boogie boards, taking pictures, playing Wiffle Ball, sitting around a bonfire, cooking hotdogs, playing tunes, taking crazy team pictures with a timer, having a mini-dance party, before finally making it back to camp.

11:45p Took a shower that cost $.25 per five minutes.  It was kind of gross but after a day at the beach where at times I was covered in this slimy seaweed stuff, all I wanted was a quick shower.

12:29a I am hoping 14 hours at the beach will tire me out enough to sleep. Good Night!

5:42a (Sunday) Well, good morning Mother Nature.  Still tired back to bed.
6:45a Yeah!!!  I slept through the night while camping!!!  I think secret is to totally tire yourself out during a day of fun and sleep will come!

7:11a Heading out to get some coffee.

7:24a Dunkin Donuts line is out the door.

7:25a Hubby is kind enough to get in line solo so I can charge my phone.

7:32a Listening to Acoustic Sunrise. Charging phone. I know, we’re pretty lame campers. (But I slept in a tent and took a shower that costs $.25 a minute.)

7:33a Checking email, Twitter feed and Facebook. (Another lame camper move!)

7:50a Coffee. Check. Heading back to camp site.

8:11a Eating some awesome omelets that our camping friend, Brian, made.

8:18a Listening to a voice mail message.  It’s the wife of the biker from yesterday’s accident.  She says he suffered a fractured collarbone and 2 broken ribs.  Ek!  Glad she called as we were wondering how he was doing and hoping he was on the mend.

9:21a We decide that since it’s not a beach day, due to the predicted rain, we’ll end our camping trip early and head home.  (We were originally just going to go to the beach before heading home.)

9:23a Breaking down camp.  Every item of clothing I have is damp and dirty.  We collapse the tents, clean up the trash, and pack the car.

9:45a Heading home.

So the weekend camping trip was a TON of fun.  It helped that we went with a crew that has camping experience and was not totally into roughing it in the wilderness.  We went to Maurice’s Campground in Wellfleet and it was a perfect site for a novice.  I don’t think I could have stayed another day.  I don’t think I’ll do it again anytime soon but I’d definitely consider it as a possible annual event (Am I hedging too much?)!!!