Girls, a Gun, a Dog and Lots and Lots of Fog

This is another installment of "Worst Outdoors Experience" series and this time it comes from one of my favorite bloggers, Melissa from Adventuroo.com. I hope you enjoy it. I sure did.

Ten years ago, it was weddings galore in my group of friends. We were at that age when everyone was getting hitched and I was no stranger to bachelorette parties. Regardless of if you’re a guy or girl, you know what THOSE parties are like.

Well, my friend Rachel decided she didn’t want one of THOSE type of bachelorette parties. Instead, she wanted to go camping with two outdoorsy friends for the weekend. No icky Chippendale dancers, no seedy bars – just three girls hiking and camping. Being the outdoorsy chick that I was, I was more than excited to have a bachelorette party sans dancers.

Too bad it ended up being the worst camping experience of my life.

We all packed up and left on a Friday afternoon. The destination? Pisgah National Forest. We planned to camp one night at a drive-up campground and the next night we wanted to backpack into Graveyard Fields to “rough it.”

I’d never really been camping with just the girls. But I’m all about GIRL POWER. We could rock this! We’re all smart, outdoorsy chicks. We were pumped up!

We decided to take the future hubby’s dog with us for safety. And a gun. The bachelorette was marrying a cop and had a concealed weapons license. This will be interesting, don’t ya think?

We hit the road, which was about a 3.5 hour road trip.

Unless you get lost.

The bachelorette/navigator had her map out but it was no use. My other friend Jill and I SWORE we were going the wrong way but how much are you gonna tick off the bride-to-be? She finally conceded and we turned around after driving almost an hour in the wrong direction.

By now it was getting dark. But it wasn’t the dark that concerned me.

It was the fog.

The type of fog that you see in old cartoons where someone cuts out a donut hole from it. We drove up a mountain at about five miles per hour, no joke. I remember us passengers sticking our heads out the right side of the car so we could see the shoulder and not run off the road. It wasn’t until the next morning that we realized what the mountain-side drop offs looked like. Yowza.

We finally pulled into the campgrounds around nine and got our spot. Tent set up without too much of a struggle. We were hungry but the office was closed so we couldn’t buy firewood. So here we were without a fire to cook anything. Luckily we walked over to a campsite near us and meekly asked to use their fire. We chatted with them a while then went back to our site to eat.

Of course, then we realized we didn’t have plates, utensils and other things useful to eat with. While I know it wasn’t 100% necessary, I just remember us going back to those nice people and asked for some of that stuff.

So much for girl power.

That's just not campfire smoke. That's fog

The next day was fun and full of hope that we wouldn’t screw it up as bad.

We hiked and after a long day seeing some sights, we got our backpacks on to hike about a mile into Graveyard Fields to camp.

Normally, I’m not freaked out by names like that but suddenly my girl power was shrinking as we descended into the place. It was pretty isolated. If I remember right, we may have been the only other campers we saw (though I remember hearing some others off in the distance).

The time we spent hanging out before bed was typically girl time. Chatting, drinking and talking wedding stuff.

When it was time for bed, it became obvious how uncomfortable it was going to be to sleep. I don’t know whose tent it was but it was SMALL. We were all fighting for space and, oh yeah, we had a 90 pound dog laying on us too. Panting.

And then there was the gun.

I started a mini freak out in my head.

Holy crap… we’re three girls out here… we’re a mile from any car… THIS PLACE IS CALLED GRAVEYARD FIELDS… what was that noise? And that one? Oh, and thaaaat onnnnne? What if we actually need that gun? I don’t like being that close to the gun. What is someone finds out we have a gun? Why is this dog sitting on my head?

I'm not sure what compelled me to share this picture. Yikes.

Okay, the freak out passed but the uneasiness didn’t. None of us could sleep but I was the worst. We were crammed in there, it smelled like dog and we were so isolated. My girl power kinda shrunk at the moment and I just wanted my hubby there. I annoyed MYSELF that I felt like that but I was kinda ready to go home. What a wuss, right?

The long, long night finally became day and we woke up unrefreshed (as you can see from the picture I dug up). The picture is hazy (moisture on the lens) and my eyes are the puffiest I’ve ever seen them. I was TIRED. So tired.

Well, the bachelorette camping trip didn’t turn out exactly as I expected. In fact, it was a “girl power” crusher in some ways.

But hey, we made it out all right. Maybe there was a shred of girl power in there after all.

Melissa is an outdoor mama and blogs over at Adventuroo.com. Since her camping trip with the girls, she’s gone on plenty of camping adventures, including the amazing Rim-to-Rim hike in the Grand Canyon. Now she’s using her girl power to show her two boys how much nature rocks.