After a long and strenuous journey in the car, we finally arrived at South Beach on Sunday evening. We got checked in and went to explore the yurt that was to be our home for the night. After unlocking the door and depositing our stuff inside, I immediately ran outside and began to roll up the window covers.
After we got ourselves situated and had a snack, we took a 1/3 mile trail down to the beach. It was early evening so the sun was still up. The sky was perfect. Not a cloud hung there at all. We ran around in the shallow water. My dad and I lured the dog in... she wasn't very pleased with us and went waddling back to my mother, seeking refuge.
After exhausting ourselves, we rested our feet which were numb from the cold water, by sitting down and watching the sunset. The colors were brilliant.
Back at the yurt, I started a campfire. I was pretty happy with it, considering I had never made one before -- due to lack of activities in my girl scout troop (which is why I am no longer a girl scout). It took me only two attempts to have a beautiful log-cabin style fire crackling before me. I had the foresight to bring a guitar along on the trip, so I sat down and sang songs by the fire. I've always wanted to do that.
We had dehydrated food for dinner... you know, the kind that you "just add water?" It wasn't bad at all. When dinner was over, my brothers and I grabbed the three ingredients we needed to make that camping favorite... s'mores! We all sat down to roast marshmallows for our desert.
As we were enjoying the sticky chocolatey goodness, my dad exclaimed, "What is that animal on the porch?" We all turned around and saw something disappear under the porch. I quickly grabbed a flashlight and illuminated the spot it was seen... Four little masked faces in a row peeked out at me! We had a family of raccoons underneath our yurt! We had fun for quite a while longer rushing all of our food inside and watching the little pests dart in and out of their home. They were awfully cute.
I finished my evening playing more guitar and singing as the fire slowly died down.
Inside the yurt, my dad and brothers and I played a game of Apples to Apples... I won. Then we all wished our friends under the porch goodnight, curled up in our sleeping bags, and fell asleep with the sound of the ocean in the background.
The next morning, after breakfast, I decided to explore a trail behind our yurt. After assuring my dad that I wouldn't be gone long, I set off alone down the trail. Reaching the end, which only dumped out to another part of the campground, I decided to go back and explore one of the side trails I had seen on the way. It led downward and was encased on either side with bushes and trees tightly woven together to form a sort of wall on either side of me. It reminded me vaguely of a corn maze. The trail continued on for a while taking sharp turns and going up and down. I didn't feel any need to turn back, so I went onward. Eventually, there was a steep incline and the trees thinned out some. I started to jog along the trail to speed things up, only remembering after several minutes that I didn't have any water and should save my energy. The trail went on for what felt like a long time. I eventually found my way out and ended up back in the campground but in a completely different area. We were in the C loop, but I ended up in the G loop. I walked around for a while until I found out where I was and then I jogged back to our yurt. My dad looked rather confused when I came up to the yurt out of breath from the opposite direction I had started my quest.
We spent a little more time on the beach before we left. We were blessed once again with beautiful weather. I found many shells which I later placed in a hole we had dug. Some lucky person will come upon the collection.
We walked back to our campsite for a final time to pack our things and then check out.
We loved the area a lot and will definitely go camping there again. I had a great weekend with my family and had fun with s'mores, yurts, raccoons, plus more!
No comments:
Post a Comment