A-camping we will go

before rogray left for sundance he arranged for us to go on a special surprise weekend to celebrate my birthday early (he was missing it? have i said that already? oh, i've said it 20 times?) and have a weekend together before we weren't going to see each other for 3 weeks.

the surprise? camping!!!

he reserved us a site at taconic state park, specifically the copake falls area. when we arrived at our reserved site not only had a 3 family group unpacked on it and left a note asking if it was okay for us to take their site we realized that either site was smack dab in the middle of a seventh day adventist church group and the aforementioned 3 family site stealer. rogray was confused because they guy on the phone when he made the reservation was like "yeah, that's a secluded site" but actually is what the opposite of secluded and in fact so surrounded by people of all ages that a realtor would describe it as "centrally located" or "smack dab in the middle of the heartbeat of the city." which is not want you want on your surprise romantic camping trip.

so after a drive around the other sites and a few trips to the office we were able to get a site that was actually secluded and not surrounded by screaming children, hymnal singers or in close proximity to what seemed to be a group camping trip that was either a family reunion or a political rally -- i don't know because they were speaking in spanish and yelling things and i think at one point someone had a drum. we were at the top of a hill and the only people next to us were the 2 british girls who drank a lot. perfect!



now when i say camping what i really mean is glamour camping or glamping. see we may be in a tent and we may have to cook on a fire pit but that does not mean we need to sacrifice style.



god, i'm classy.

so after we took a walk and a bracing swim in the swimming hole we started to drink and cook:





while we waited for the feast to cook we started a very intense game of scrabble:



do not cross me. . .

we took a break to eat this:


by the time we had finished up our totally awesome meal o' grill we went back to playing the very intense game of scrabble but this time with very attractive lighting:



and some new friends:


and then i KICKED ROGRAY'S ASS AT SCRABBLE!!!!!!!!!!!! BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!

the next morning rogray seemed to have shaken off the bitter disappointment of losing at the MOST IMPORTANT SCRABBLE GAME EVER



and got to work on breakfast:




you know it's glamping when you bring your french press and breakfast looks like this:



after breakfast rogray tried to fly like a turkey and no, i can't remember how this came about but i have it on camera which is really all that matters:



i think now you know why we might want to be in a more secluded environment. after we humiliated ourselves we went for a hike to the bash-bish falls.



which is in massachusetts!! we had to hike all the way to another state! that's how hardcore we are. state border crossing hardcore!!*

we finally got to the falls:


and had to take a break because of the strenuous nature of our journey. this is the canopy under which we lazed:


we then made the massive state border crossing trek back to new york



and promptly went for another bracing dip in the swimming hole. now, when i say bracing i mean this water was so cold that grown men who clearly wanted to be considered tough and awesome were too scared to jump in because of what might happen to their special man area. it was so cold that you spent the first 5 minutes shivering and the next 5 debating whether or not to pee so at least there would be a warm spot followed by the next 20 minutes swimming around looking for the warm spots and not caring if your floating in someone's urine because by god, at least it's warm. it was amazing.

after that lunch:


yeah, that's grilled bread. . .


and a very important game of boggle:



in which i KICKED ROGRAY'S ASS AT BOGGLE!!!!!!!!!!!! BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!

we celebrated by making daytime early birthday s'mores:


sadly, that brought our completely awesome surprise early birthday camping trip to a close. we drove back to brooklyn, loaded up our bags for our various trips and parted ways very, very early the next morning.

for all you interested in what you need to go glamping please feel free to ask me. and if you are looking for a great spot in the new york area i highly suggest this place. ..it's beautiful. . .
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*full disclosure: the whole hike is 1.5 miles--round-trip.