The Adventures of Camping with Dirt Day #1

   We are back from our first camping adventure together! We spent the last week purchasing and preparing things for our trip. We decided to go to Myrtle Beach State Park this time since we were able to search and reserve a site online at their website. I happen to be a little bit of a list maker.... and had most of the things together and organized by Monday night, Jim said he has never been camping this organized and prepared.

     These pictures are our camping site when we first arrived. It was the last site in the row so we only had 2 neighbors. A man who had been camping there with his wife and dog since bike wee & the other a family from North Carolina here for a mini-vacation. Whew what a relief no crazy/creepy people.

Pretty cool site huh? Think we should move here permanently?

This was the lizard living in the tree on our camping site. There were about (we never saw them all at once) three of these living in the tree and were the first thing I saw when we pulled up. Not gonna lie they were a bit creepy looking but it turns out they were more afraid of me than I was of them. They were very  hard to take pictures of. My "deal" with all the wildlife for the weekend was if they stayed out of my space I would not kill them.... although this applied mostly to insects, I couldn't kill one of these.

Everything all set up and ready to go. Homey isn't it? I had everything organized things into food tent, clothes/toiletries tent, and sleeping tent.

     Tucker happy he got to come along! He made many friends the first day. The lady at the check in gate gave him a peanut butter cracker, a girl at a campsite down the way who thought he was "the best dog in the whole world", & the girls at the campsite next to us who pet him for five minutes straight.

Our site was surrounded by woods. We were a bit surprised when all the sudden groups of people started walking through the woods behind our site. Apparently there was a hiking trail back there. The man at the site across from us (a little off and weird but seemed like a nice guy) told us that if you go back to the pond at around dusk or dawn there is a large alligator living in the pond.

So of course we had to go... I was a bit hesitant because it was getting dark and with the trees it was even darker. What if the alligator had gotten bored of the pond and decided he liked the trail better. We also had bait on a leash with us and I kinda like him.(Jim didn't leave his knife in the truck this time).

Of course one of the first things that we had to do once we got the fire started was make hobo pies. This was the first time for Jim but a camping staple for me. Hobo pies are two pieces of bread filled with pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, and peperoni you then put them in a pie maker and heat them till the outsides are toasty. These were followed by s'mores with marshmellows that were toasted NOT burnt.

With all the excitement and activity we were tired early. I had put Tucker's water bowl over his food bowl to keep it free of bugs and safe overnight. Or so I thought. Just about the time  we both settled into a good sleep we heard a clattering outside the tent and saw our little visiter.