And so, we were at the campground in Blanchard Springs and pretty much completely settled when RB realized we'd brought everything to make French toast -- except the syrup.
But really, aside from the 15 minutes or so I spent being thoroughly annoyed with myself for having to spend $13 on disposable shoes, it was all good for a lot of laughs. We went back for the sleeping bag, my Wal-Mart shoes only rubbed me raw in one spot and we improvised for breakfast and made cheesy eggs and sausage. Which, HELLO, involved cheese. This was clearly a win.
When we arrived at Blanchard Springs on Saturday morning we headed straight for the spring, and had lunch at the foot of a waterfall coming out of the caverns. After that, we headed into camp to claim a spot an then got ourselves ready to head out for a hike up the mountain.
The Wal-Mart shoes held up, god love 'em, and I did manage to get a gnarly scrape about 10 minutes in to the journey which resulted in some fairly spectacular scab formation that made me feel thoroughly bad-ass and also not unlike a mountain man.
When we made it back, we set up the tent (don't you love how I keep saying that WE did things when really Mr. RB did things and I watched him?) and then headed down to the creek -- or as I lovingly called it, The Crik -- to skip some more stones. I say more really only for Mr. RB, since we'd stopped along a little section of The Crik on our hike earlier and he had skipped stones while I had worked on my impression of a very drunk person practicing for a discus event at a track meet for blind people.
After The Crik, we made dinner, and after dinner, we invested some more time into our fire and then began making preparations for the roasting of marshmallows. Just thinking about it now makes my mouth water because Good God JESUS I love marshmallows.
I have two distinct techniques for marshmallow roasting/toasting, one of which is used for 'mallow, straight up, and one of which is used for the construction of the perfect s'more. The distinction is important, because when you make a s'more, you need to slow cook that thing. Rotisserie style. Get a nice little toasted color to it and then just when it looks like it's about to sag right off the stick, you pull it off and SMOOSHTOWN, you've got a s'more.
But when you're just roasting the marshmallow to eat it, plain, in all its gooey glory (which I like to do in between s'mores -- eat a s'more, eat a marshmallow, eat a s'more, eat a marshmallow, etc., so forth and so on) you want to light that bad boy on fire. Or at least, I want to light that bad boy on fire. I want it to go up in flames, I want to blow those flames out, pull the burnt shell off and eat it first and then suck the melted middle part off the stick. (Does this all sound super dirty to you, or is my mind stuck in its usual gutter spot? Gooey white stuff on a stick? No? Just me? Okay.)
So there we are, in between s'mores. I'm roasting a marshmallow. It ignites, little marshmallow flames leaping up in perfection, and I pull it away from the fire. I want to tell you that I have a clear understanding of what happened next, but it was all sort of like a dream, one you'd later describe with phrases like "allofasudden" and "I knew it was you, but your face looked like Michael Jackson's." And all of a sudden, that marshmallow was airborne. And it was flaming. And somehow, some kind of way, part of the hot gooey middle bits burst forth from the casing and wrapped around my hand like marshmallow napalm.
So my flesh is being melted off by steaming marshmallow insides. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the flaming casing of the 'mallow has landed smack on my leg, my leg that has PANTS on it, PANTS which are FLAMMABLE and suddenly my brain has alarms and bells and whistles going off in every direction because in that split second it cannot figure out whether to free my fingers from the flesh-melting-confection or to fling a fireball from my pants leg. What resulted next was me trying to do both of those things at the same time, which I'm sure looked something like an invertebrate in the electric chair. Because he's such a nice guy -- and because I was screaming bloody murder -- Mr. RB did refrain from laughing out loud until the incendiary was safely put out in the gravel nearby, the globs of white sticky mess all over my pants the only evidence remaining.
At least the riotous laughter following the screams reassured the other campers that no one was being viciously murdered. For now.
We crashed fairly early, what with being stuffed full of marshmallows and two tall-boys in each. Sunday morning when we got up to make breakfast we discovered little raccoon paw prints in the cast iron skillet. And though at the time we couldn't see that he'd bothered anything, later that day, after we were home searching for a bag of trail mix we knew we hadn't finished, we decided our little furry friend was probably chillin' in the woods somewhere, chowing on nuts and M&Ms. And maybe a resealable zipper bag.
After a long leisurely breakfast and at least an hour's worth of me entertaining myself playing "Don't Let the Fire Go Out," we started packing things up. We headed down to The Crik one more time for a quick toe dip and then got on the road.
And then, on the way home, not ten minutes from camp, we encountered some heavy traffic. Luckily, we were able to make a stealthy maneuver and pass, albeit on the righthand side.
cheers,
elizabeth
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