out of town weekend!
I need a better singing or music icon. As it stands, I really guess I should re-do all my icons, as I have mentioned before. Enh, sounds hard.
Sure enough, it was time for the Northern Shenandoah Valley Sacred Harp and Shape Note Singers two-day singing, an annual event the first weekend in June. (Sidebar: When did it get to be JUNE WTF!?) I had borrowed a tent from pseudotheist and paleotheist and they'd shown me how to set it up. I had some snacks and beer to share. I was set.
I tried, I really did, to get up and out the door no later than 8:30 on Saturday morning. But my brain falls down this rabbit hole on weekend mornings when I actually need to be somewhere. Because I don't generally work out on weekends, I think it will take me much less time to get ready than it does on weekdays. But I never estimate HOW much less time correctly. Also not truly showing in my estimates: how damn lazy I am on weekend mornings. I didn't get on the road until 9, or actually a little afterward. First I had to stop at Touche Touchet for a fortifying scone and iced coffee, natch.
Then, the open road! I got there in like an hour and 40 minutes, which was excellent time, but still got me there like 45 minutes after the singing had started. So I had to go in and SING EXTRA LOUD to make up for it! (Okay, maybe not really.) We had a very packed house and no air conditioning, so I'm glad it wasn't the near-100-degree temperatures from earlier in the week. We sang a whole bunch, took a break for lunch, sang a bunch more. It was over at 3:30, but really that just meant everyone packed up and took the party to the Del Re's farm.
There, I set up my tent. Right by my car. Photographic proof! (Click through for more pictures from the weekend.)
Once I was all set up, it was time for socializin' at the farmhouse. Which basically went until the wee small hours of the morning. I drank beer and talked with a bunch of people and snacked on delicious food, then later there was a huge bonfire. And it was all awesome. I didn't technically make it 'til the wee small hours myself, as I'd been up since like 6:30. Around 10:30 I was having trouble staying awake so I took my toiletry bag up to the house, brushed my teeth, then went back to my tent to settle in.
Which is of course when I learned that in the many, many years since I last went camping, I have indeed gotten MUCH older. In the sense that, dude, it is really hard to sleep on the ground. Like, it's difficult and actually HARD, ow. Eventually I drifted off. I woke up around 2 a.m. because, well, I just didn't sleep that well. I made my way back to the house to go to the bathroom, meaning I set off the motion-detector floodlight on the garage. Sorry, fellow campers! (Did no one ELSE have to pee in the middle of the night? Or did they just go outside? Sorry, if there's a bathroom in short walking distance I am NOT peeing outside.) I went back to sleep until...oh, 4 a.m. or so. There were distant rumbles of thunder, see, and then they were less distant. And lightning. And...oh. I decided I'd better make a break for the bathroom to get there before the rain started, and I honestly just made it. It wasn't more than a minute or two after I zipped myself back into my tent when I heard the first raindrops pattering on the rain flap. Then MANY MORE raindrops pounded down as we got the full brunt of a big ol' thunderstorm. The tent worked perfectly and kept me snug and dry. So I could be snug and dry while I lay there, sleepless, feeling every nearby thunder-crack in the very ground upon which I lay. After 20 minutes or so I realized the tent was NOT going to collapse on my head or start leaking (I trusted the tent, of good quality; it was my own tent-pitching skills I doubted), so that was better. Still pretty hard to sleep though. Eventually I drifted back off to sleep, but by 8 a.m. I was up for good.
I got up, and made my way to the house, where I did find the shower unoccupied. Hurrah! I took a quick shower then went back to the car, ate a Luna bar and took my morning pills, then set about taking the tent down. The rain flap was still soaked, so I took everything home to air dry. Once I was all packed up it was time to go back over for more singing.
And, I lasted all of an hour, until the first break. I was exhausted and cranky from sleeping so badly the night before, and I wanted to get through the drive home before I got tired-er and crankier. Said my goodbyes and got on the road, got home by like...1:30? or something? I went and got a few groceries and unpacked and all, and I cleaned the catboxes, but I decided to take a week off most of the cleaning. I'm such a rebel. I mainly zoned out in front of Anne of Green Gables on Maryland Public Television.
Gentle readers, I went to bed at 8:45. SO TIRED. So I've actually had 8 hours' sleep, but without my catch-up sleep this weekend I feel I'm already behind the ball for the week. Fortunately this coming Saturday, I have no early-morning plans!
Sure enough, it was time for the Northern Shenandoah Valley Sacred Harp and Shape Note Singers two-day singing, an annual event the first weekend in June. (Sidebar: When did it get to be JUNE WTF!?) I had borrowed a tent from pseudotheist and paleotheist and they'd shown me how to set it up. I had some snacks and beer to share. I was set.
I tried, I really did, to get up and out the door no later than 8:30 on Saturday morning. But my brain falls down this rabbit hole on weekend mornings when I actually need to be somewhere. Because I don't generally work out on weekends, I think it will take me much less time to get ready than it does on weekdays. But I never estimate HOW much less time correctly. Also not truly showing in my estimates: how damn lazy I am on weekend mornings. I didn't get on the road until 9, or actually a little afterward. First I had to stop at Touche Touchet for a fortifying scone and iced coffee, natch.
Then, the open road! I got there in like an hour and 40 minutes, which was excellent time, but still got me there like 45 minutes after the singing had started. So I had to go in and SING EXTRA LOUD to make up for it! (Okay, maybe not really.) We had a very packed house and no air conditioning, so I'm glad it wasn't the near-100-degree temperatures from earlier in the week. We sang a whole bunch, took a break for lunch, sang a bunch more. It was over at 3:30, but really that just meant everyone packed up and took the party to the Del Re's farm.
There, I set up my tent. Right by my car. Photographic proof! (Click through for more pictures from the weekend.)
Once I was all set up, it was time for socializin' at the farmhouse. Which basically went until the wee small hours of the morning. I drank beer and talked with a bunch of people and snacked on delicious food, then later there was a huge bonfire. And it was all awesome. I didn't technically make it 'til the wee small hours myself, as I'd been up since like 6:30. Around 10:30 I was having trouble staying awake so I took my toiletry bag up to the house, brushed my teeth, then went back to my tent to settle in.
Which is of course when I learned that in the many, many years since I last went camping, I have indeed gotten MUCH older. In the sense that, dude, it is really hard to sleep on the ground. Like, it's difficult and actually HARD, ow. Eventually I drifted off. I woke up around 2 a.m. because, well, I just didn't sleep that well. I made my way back to the house to go to the bathroom, meaning I set off the motion-detector floodlight on the garage. Sorry, fellow campers! (Did no one ELSE have to pee in the middle of the night? Or did they just go outside? Sorry, if there's a bathroom in short walking distance I am NOT peeing outside.) I went back to sleep until...oh, 4 a.m. or so. There were distant rumbles of thunder, see, and then they were less distant. And lightning. And...oh. I decided I'd better make a break for the bathroom to get there before the rain started, and I honestly just made it. It wasn't more than a minute or two after I zipped myself back into my tent when I heard the first raindrops pattering on the rain flap. Then MANY MORE raindrops pounded down as we got the full brunt of a big ol' thunderstorm. The tent worked perfectly and kept me snug and dry. So I could be snug and dry while I lay there, sleepless, feeling every nearby thunder-crack in the very ground upon which I lay. After 20 minutes or so I realized the tent was NOT going to collapse on my head or start leaking (I trusted the tent, of good quality; it was my own tent-pitching skills I doubted), so that was better. Still pretty hard to sleep though. Eventually I drifted back off to sleep, but by 8 a.m. I was up for good.
I got up, and made my way to the house, where I did find the shower unoccupied. Hurrah! I took a quick shower then went back to the car, ate a Luna bar and took my morning pills, then set about taking the tent down. The rain flap was still soaked, so I took everything home to air dry. Once I was all packed up it was time to go back over for more singing.
And, I lasted all of an hour, until the first break. I was exhausted and cranky from sleeping so badly the night before, and I wanted to get through the drive home before I got tired-er and crankier. Said my goodbyes and got on the road, got home by like...1:30? or something? I went and got a few groceries and unpacked and all, and I cleaned the catboxes, but I decided to take a week off most of the cleaning. I'm such a rebel. I mainly zoned out in front of Anne of Green Gables on Maryland Public Television.
Gentle readers, I went to bed at 8:45. SO TIRED. So I've actually had 8 hours' sleep, but without my catch-up sleep this weekend I feel I'm already behind the ball for the week. Fortunately this coming Saturday, I have no early-morning plans!