Cow Land... Carstairs, Alberta

i love camping!

for august long weekend, we decide to head out to our friends' property in carstairs for a night out.

we are soooooooooo excited!

5:00 PM : original meeting time...

5:25 PM : we show up

5:45 PM : jenn and justin finally show up

6:00 PM : we leave for carstairs

6:15 PM : arrive at property, excited to drive the jeep through a few fields, smells like cows!

6:25 PM : arrive in desired, fenced area

proceed to clear the 3 foot wild grass and thistles with wild feet-stomping and the rolling of old fence posts

6:35 PM : chuck old fence posts at dead trees

6:45 PM : set up tents, see lightening in the distance, prepare for light drizzle:

7:00 PM : men drive out to find rocks for our fire pit

7:05 PM : use the time to take cute pictures of deakon

while wishing that i had a better camera

7:15 PM : still waiting for men, chit chat around the dug up hole that will soon be a fire pit

7:20 : men bring back many rocks for fire pit. have light drizzle of rain for 15-20 minutes. start fire.

7:20 PM : men sit around picking off burrs and itchy something. deakon is massively dirty by this time

7:25 PM : with no dinner started yet, deakon helps himself to chocolate teddy grahams while frolicking in the grass

7:30 PM : chilling before starting dinner

8:00 PM-12:30 AM: make hot dogs and chicken and veggies on the propane grill and in the fire. eat lots of chips and veggies and dip. drink pop out of tiny little glasses. put deakon to bed although he keeps yelling goodnight to everyone for what seems like hours. attempt to take cute couple pictures... SOME could not do something so simple. cook up delicious s'mores and share stories around the fire. start seeing lightening, but decide that we will just get a light drizzle like we had earlier. clean up camp and head to bed.

dan and kate... plus eight:

jenn and jo-jo:

us:

1:15 AM : mostly settled and just drifting off to sleep when i keep hearing one corner of our tent flapping up- freak myself out thinking it is a gopher. feel the ground looking for hole with gopher in it. find no gopher- sanely start listening and hear the wind and thunder.

1:25 AM : HUGE gust of wind shoves our tent almost in half. the wind doesn't let down. heavy rain starts and the top rain fly feels like it is doing absolutely nothing. we grab the thickest blanket we can a shove it against the tent. hail starts shooting us wildly. our fingers are instantly bruised by golf-ball sized pellets raining down on us. kyle thinks to get deakon out of pack-and-play. he is looking around like we are crazy, his hair and blankets are soaked through. by now we are sitting with the thick blanket around our shoulders holding the tent up against the wild wind, praying that the rain fly doesn't fly completely off, shaking from the cold, listening to the cracking trees, holding deakon under the only dry blanket we have while he is yelling, "i ok, i ok." we want to run for the jeep, but decide that we have to wait until the hail stops.

1:45 AM : wrap deakon up the best we can and make a run for the jeep

2:00 AM : sit in jeep waiting for storm to calm down a bit before breaking camp

2:15-3:00 AM : men and kate break camp and take pics. we decide that we have no choice but to drive the hour home and get deakon into warm clothes. pack our soaked equipment and drive a bit crazily through the bumpy fields, hoping not to hit any cows. deakon is squealing in the back, "oh, fun" arrive at main road, say good-night and good-bye and the last thing i hear from kate is, "let's do this again!" we COMPLETELY agree!!!! Minus the hail, we had a blast!

aftermath of the storm:

this was the hail... after a bit of melting.

i saw those babies hitting us, they were huge!!!

our tent afterwards, even though the rain-fly didn't do much to help with the side-ways rain, we were glad it stayed on so we weren't completely soaked:

hail build-up:

jenn and justin were not so lucky. their fly flipped off with the first gust and they were left with the completely mesh sides, welts on justin's back, swollen fingers from holding up the tent for jenn, and bent tent poles.