camping

i've been told numerous times that the west coast is beautiful and one ought to take advantage of it while living here to enjoy the wonders of the great outdoors. two of the girls in my girls group have never been REAL camping (ie camping in tents) so i took the opportunity to break them in and took them camping last weekend.

washington state has a website where you can view all state parks and make a reservation at a campsite based on availability and activities and facilities. i picked a park that was not too far away (an hour drive north from seattle) and had a hiking trail and beach. upon arriving on Friday evening, we discovered that the campsite was pretty much located in someone else's backyard. from our campsite we could see a wooden fence that separated someone's private property from the state park. we could also see that on the other side of the fence were a string of large houses. at night, we were so close to our neighbour's campsite that we could hear them snoring in their tents. we could also hear motorcycles and other vehicles driving down the street on the other side of the fence. we couldn't find the hiking trail so we spent most of our time on the beach and cooking in front of the firepit.

even though the state park was a bit of a disappointment, we had pretty good food! emily had seen an episode on the food network on the varieties of food you could cook with aluminum foil when camping. she decided we should try out the cinnamon rolls in orange peels. we took oranges and cut them in half. then cut out the fruit in the oranages and in the peels, we put an uncooked cinnamon roll (you can get those pilsbury brand cinnamon rolls where you just have to open the package and put them onto a pan to cook). then we put the two halfs of the stuffed orange back together and wrapped the whole thing in aluminum foil. toss into the firepit for a good 20 minutes or so. unwrap the aluminum foil and enjoy a tasty dessert! YUMMY!