Campsite

When June rolls around, an all-too familiar feeling accompanies it ... the intense desire to sleep under a starry sky, to wake up to the smell of wood smoke, to experience the satisfaction of setting up camp in the middle of a deep forest, and to soak up the stillness and quiet of a being the only ones about for miles. With summer comes a need to escape from the noise, bustle, and busyness of city life ... if even for just a few days...

... thankfully my friends are just crazy enough to agree with me on this. And as I'm planning and scheming for this summer, I can't help but look back at the weekend that Nataleigh and I took on Jay Cooke State Park in Duluth, MN. We backpacked into our campsite, carrying our firewood for the weekend due to the presence of rain, hooked our food up into the trees to avoid any unwanted visitors, set up a tent next to a burbling stream, watched as the darkness of night slowly overtook us, attempted to fall asleep even though our nerves heard every twig break and every scamper of the wood creatures about us, and woke with the sun to another beautiful day. The quiet, stillness, beauty, and the deep conversations around the campfire were absolutely worth the sore muscles, the mosquito bites, muddy clothes, smoke-filled hair and the occasional worried whisper of "Was that a bear?!"