Suzanne Carillo

When you think of me you probably think, outdoorsy, sporty type. 

I told you I don't paint my finger nails nor do I wear makeup daily.

How much more outdoorsy can I  get?

When my sister came to visit recently we decided to devote a few days to being "Weekend Warriors". That meant glamping, zip lining, wine tasting, live jazz, star gazing, hiking in the treetops, suspension bridges, canopy tours and a long beautiful trip kayaking. 

This was our "tent".

Inside the tent…

No sleeping bags for us.

No squatting in the bush either.  That opening on the left goes to the little bathroom with hot running water and a proper toilet.

And this guy…

Poised and ready to jump on the first person brave enough to sit down on that toilet.

We had to go and get the manager to come and do a spider sweep of our tent. I kid you not.  

The other door you see leads to the private outdoor shower…

The shower was fantastic!  I loved looking up to the blue sky. Never mind those couple of mosquitos. 

And then… there were our other eight legged greeters…most of them on the outside of the tent. Just you know, hangin' out…welcoming us to their hood.

Do you think that white stuff is millions of baby spiders waiting to hatch in the middle of the night? Or just white fluffy cotton candy?

 

Our first order of business after checking into our tent was to getting to Burning Kiln for a winery tour and some serious outdoorsy wine tasting.  I told you I was intent on becoming one with nature.

I had to take off my sweater, the wine was warming me up too much. 

After that my sister threw another couple of logs on the fire and managed to cook up a little somethin' somethin' for supper…

With her campfire cooking skills I think she should be on SurvivorWoman. 

She even had a waitress serve it. You don't see that often ever on SurvivorMan. 

After we headed out for a night of star gazing. 

That is a powerful telescope perched at the very top of those stairs. We were able to view the rings around Saturn and several other galaxies millions of light years away.

My sister said it was very surreal standing in the dark with a bunch of strangers looking up at the sky and talking about the end of the world.  

I sighed and said,

"Ah, just another Friday night for me."

With that we went out to the big campfire and gobbled up a few chocolate-less s'mores.  Don't even ask…they had run out of chocolate. Really they should have been called s'less. 

When you are camping in the wild you make these kind of sacrifices people.  

No room service and no choloate in the s'mores.

Then we headed back to our tent where our first real "adventure" of the trip took place.

We came into the tent to find a number of creepy crawlies inside, high up on the ceiling and no one around to ask for help. Normally I don't do well with insects, but it turns out my sister hates them even more than me.  After we turned out the lights she freaked, insisting that a large moth had flown onto her face in the darkness. I thought it was weird that out of all the spots in the tent to land it chose her face…but who was I to argue?  Maybe it was in fact a smothering moth and was trying to land on her mouth & nose to silently suck the air from her lungs.  Or maybe it was a flesh eating moth that would leave a big gaping red mushy hole in her face.

Remind me not to watch anymore Walking Dead.

We were tired, in an isolated tent, late at night, in the middle of nowhere, with just romantic spooky insect sounds that keep getting louder and louder like the sacred frenzied chanting heard just prior to a human sacrifice. 

All that wine I'd tasted before was making my mind run in strange directions.

 

I needed to keep calm. 

And get that damn moth.

Trying to balance as best as possible on the bed with a large plastic bag as my weapon with all of my well trained outdoor-gal skills…

amongst a few shrieks, an "almost face plant", and lots of nervous laughter I managed to capture that flesh eating, life sucking monster moth and throw him outside!

 

Wohoo! 

Suzanne – 1

Mother Nature – 0

 

to be con't…