This was by far the hottest weekend I’ve ever gone camping. When we arrived at Henry Coe State Park on Friday, the temperature reached 103° F. We knew we were in for some heat. That’s an understatement!

Bees and wasps galore when the heat is in. They swarmed our food, but thankfully no one got stung. That’s good right? Since the state of California is in a drought right now, everything is dry. Sadly for us, that meant no charcoal or wood fires. No campfire makes me a sad girl. Nonetheless it was still a fun trip!

On Friday night, we got in, scoped out our sites, pitched our tents, and started to make dinner before dark. I prepped some chicken teriyaki at home so we simply cooked it, cooked some spam, heated the rice up, and supplemented with seaweed. Asian meal at it’s finest, chicken for protein and deconstructed spam musubis for dinner. I also made some brownies at home to bring as dessert. Delish!

We played some games that night and then went to sleep. MG and I didn’t use our tarp over our tents that night so that we could see through the mess and feel the night breeze. Comparatively speaking to my other camping experiences, this was a hot night. Mid 60°F to low 70°F is pretty hot for sleeping. Once dawn hit, it was too hot to sleep in; everyone was up by 7am.

We prepped breakfast, sat around and talked, made our sandwiches, and started a 5 mile hike. We even brought our swimsuits because midway through the hike, there’s a lake. We were excited to be able to cool off… but once we got to the lake, we realized why it was named “frog lake.” Thousands of frogs jumping everywhere, a layer of slime, and stagnant water. Great! Who’s getting in first? Nobody. We didn’t want to risk our lives in this water…

^^^ Look at Gandalf here trying to fashion his walking stick

Oh okay… Let me just jump right in here… NOT

All those rock lookin things… frogs.

We hiked back down and asked the ranger where we could swim. Apparently in the county of Santa Clara, you cannot swim in bodies of water. Our ranger told us 1) we could swim in frog lake (who-the-eff does that!?!) or 2) we could “fall” into Anderson Lake nearby to cool off. We drove back down the mountain and dipped into the super muddy Lake to cool off. At that point, having some sort of water to degrease and get the caked on sunscreen off was worth it!

Perhaps we stopped by a McDonald’s afterwards for ice cream… maybe. Can you blame me?

We fix up some burgers, ramen, smores and smoreos for the night. Oh yes, you read that right. I said smoreos; roasted marshmallows sandwiched into oreos. You’re welcome for opening your eyes.

We played games, the girls did facials, and then we all headed to bed for an early morning to get to church on time.

Note to the reader: Quiet time is at 10pm at campsites. Don’t cook and talk loudly at midnight! Or else you’ll hear from me…

Great camping trip! I’ve had better ones but the fellowship during this trip was definitely memorable!

Have a great week y’all!
Jay