Fireless Camping

A group of friends and I went camping at Umstead Park last weekend. Because North Carolina is under a state-wide fire ban, we couldn't have open flame. We were restricted to using only charcoal as well as covering the hot charcoal with aluminum foil. So no traditional s'mores sadly.

Friday night we cooked up a couple dutch oven cobblers: apple and cherry around the fireless fire-ring. Before that, we ran around the woods for a while playing capture the flag. It was pretty uneventful for a time because it really didn't seem like anyone was moving, then we had to stop about 3 times in order to reposition the flags. It finally ended with Christian climbing trees and stealing my team's flag while I sat helpless in jail.

For breakfast I made us a dutch oven breakfast of bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, and cheese. It took a while to cook because the charcoal doesn't heat up as much as a real fire. Good thing the planes flying over the park at all hours of the morning woke me up early enough to get started on it. Oh the joys of being able to camp five minutes from my house.

We made it absolutely clear that the boys and the girls were camping at separate camp sites. We even separated the sites with a "chastity rope". The boys had one small tent and all the rest slept outside in little Coleman cocoons. It was a toasty 40 degrees that night. The girls had two giant tents but somehow Mary still ended up sleeping on the table.