And even the best laid plans go awry... But a bottle of wine and some magazines help!

The other week Jenna and I decided to go on our first real solo adventure and took off to the south for an overnight hike/camp/hike trip.
How it was supposed to go:
We figured we would pack our backpacks (mine literally being a school backpack with my sleeping bag strapped to it with a Princess Cruises luggage strap), then hike in, camp and hike out. Of course, "hike in" really meant go on a short hike then come back to the car where we could chicken out in the middle of the night and leave or at the very least turn on the heater and avoid becoming human icicles.  We would eat MREs, boil water on a fire we built ourselves. Basically, we would become the badasses we strive to be, overnight.

How it really went:
The plan to meet up and head out at 11 ended up just a tad late, about a half hour (which is REALLY good for us!) After picking up the camping necessaries — hot dogs, s'mores ingredients (minus the crackers, which neither of us likes), candy and an assortment of girly magazines — we hit the trail! Figuratively speaking... if I5 can be referred to as such. I think it can, in this instance. Two hours later we reached Oakridge, Ore., and decided we needed one last meal before heading into the wilderness. Two yummy grilled sandwiches and raspberry wheat beers later from a cute little pub and we were set. We also scouted out the hostel at this point, just in case. Having never been to Salmon Creek Falls campground, I was content to let Jenna navigate and mostly not pay attention to anything. Then... NAP! A full tummy and a warm doggie on my lap led to a short doze, which I guess was more like 45ish minutes of Jenna driving aimlessly looking for the road she knew we needed to be on. I only woke up because the little spit of a road we were on was definitely not meant for a little passenger car. Time to turn back and get our bearings! We headed back to town (cell phone service) where I could google where we wanted to be. We were so close! Just needed a left instead of a right. Oh well! A sweet four miles later we found the campground... closed. As in locked and barred and devoid of any sign of life. In all actuality, we could have camped there after abandoning the car somewhere down the road so we wouldn't get caught, but we're good kids, so we drove a little further and found this great little campsite back off a tiny road with giant potholes. Campsite might be too demeaning of a word. This was more like the Central Park of campsites. You probably could fit four or five full size motorhomes in there. If you could get in the little driveway.
Anyhow, time to hike! Right? No. It was starting to rain, so we set up our tent next to the fire pit, then set to work making fire. Besides, we didn't even know where the trailhead was and ran out of cell phone service a ways back. Oh well, we'd do that tomorrow!
After successfully making fire (so what if it was tiny and took like 20 minutes) I did some scavenging for firewood since I didn't think I packed enough, and found two sticks that were maybe dry enough. Maybe. Jenna set to chopping with a hatchet while I took pictures and tried to stand on the end of it to hold it still.
Dinner time! The fire was merrily burning away a bit later and we had boiling water, hot dog sticks, a Mountain Home meal to try, and it was only sprinkling! MMM hot dogs.
Our secret guilty pleasure food.
We share a lot of funny idiosyncrasies, I'm sure you'll learn more about this later. But for two fitness and nutrition majors, you'd think hot dogs were a no-no. They are. Except when they're available. And when camping.

After hot dogs, we were too full for s'mores, and totally forgot about the Mountain Home. Oops.
We sat around the fire for a while giggling and such, then decided it was cold, and it was late, so why not crawl in bed and be warm there, with wine and magazines :)

Our ditzy convo went something like this: "I'm so tired, it must be late! Like eight!" "OMG, guess what time it is!" "We didn't even make it to eight??" "No! Guess!" "7:30?" *shows phone* "5:30!?!"
Yes, we are getting old. Aged 22 and 26.3 (ish. This is the third time I've changed her age and gotten it wrong), we go to bed at 5:30 without external stimulus. The saddest part? Both of us were ready to sleep! We poured some fancy wine direct from Italy — courtesy of a friend of Jenna's — looked through a few pages of magazine, then were out.
We both woke up a few times during the night for extended periods of time, but apparently neither knew the other was awake, or it would have been party time No.2, but eventually made it to morning without incident, as well as staying fairly dry considering the downpour that raged all night.

Time to hike! Or at least make breakfast! Fire's out. Let's bail. Breakfast in town. We'll hike back in Corvallis.
At the tiny diner, we were total outcasts, given poor service (except for practically being force-fed coffee), and got many stares. It was obvious we weren't from around there in the 20-person max capacity establishment. We were obliged to leave tips anyhow after paying at the counter while the lady watched us. Boo. Good French toast though.
Once again, we hit the road, this time slightly colder, a bit more sore, and yet somehow satisfied with our first solo adventure to survive in the woods.

We never did go on that hike when we got home. We only failed at packing everything we needed in  our packs and actually hiking. Maybe if Carl had come like he was supposed to (and we presume he regretted) we would have been more motivated to be tough. We were tough. We slept outside. We made fire. We didn't get eaten by bears. The John Muir Trail can't be worse than late-November camping in Oregon! 'Cept for you know, the hiking.

Our guard dog :)