Best Exercise in Excessive Linkage

Get ready to click like crazy, if you like pictures. Of camping. It should be said that this is a post that'll only be interesting for people who went on the camping trip, and even more specifically, it's only interesting to those who went on the trip that I took a picture of. Also, sorry ahead of time for the way these pictures will be opening up. I tried posting these pictures in several different ways and this seemed best.

So, Friday night was the big Union Square 3rd Ward Camp Out (if you don't know, I'm talking about church.) Four vanfulls of us met in front of the 15th street and I took some establishing photos.

Here you'll see Lisa and Rebecca, check out Lisa's sleeping bag.
And here's Jason, Emily, Jeff, and Stephen.
Laura demonstrates how bad her cough is and Brooke is blinded by the flash.

Soon enough we were on the road. The camp was allegedly just an hour and a half north of the city, I think everyone will contest that it took a little longer than that to get there.

Along the way we descended upon a gas station like a swarm of locust
But finally we got to camp, I took this photo in the dark, not knowing what I'd capture

There was lots of sitting around the campfire and talking and eating to do once we got there.

I tried to take a "cool" picture of the fire w/o flash. It didn't really work.

There were a lot of tents there, and a lot of sleeping bags. Unfortunately, there were more people there than tents, but fortunately, the people didn't outnumber the sleeping bags. I slept in a bag on two pads on a tarp.

This is what I looked like in the morning
These are the eyes of me without sleep

So, the daytime camping adventures began. Mostly the camping adventures consisted in going down to the lake and eating breakfast.

Here's a bunch of the group by the lake.
This is Nicole, being crazy
This is what everyone loves about Laura, she's above average
Erika, who is awesome, cooked my sausage for me
Yeah, it's business as usual with Patricia
Now the Mulcocks and Patricia eat
Laura got a big pancake
Here's a secret photo of Leslie, Olivia, and, uhm, the visitor
Ryan and Margie talk about stuff
And there's Elna and what's-her-face
Adam, with can on head.

Whenever I went camping with my dad we'd get to the campsite, set up our tents, go find a restaurant, then go sleep in the tent, wake up, and leave. On this trip, I lasted until about 11 when I noticed people sneaking off to an early van home to the city. I felt I had enjoyed nature long enough, and snuck off to join them.

Last shot of the campground, mid-taking down
Genevieve and Lauren intercepted me on my way out

The trip back to the city was so much faster than our ride out . . . and I don't think it was just a traffic thing. When we got back to the church Tim Robbins (who lives across the street from our building) was loading up his Prius with his boys (they were probably going camping, too). Brooke insisted I take pictures of him, so I pulled the old "Taking pictures of the people behind the person I'm taking pictures of trick." Also, this was like the second time I'd seen Tim in the neighborhood. But the first time since he won his Oscar.

Brooke with Tim
And Brooke with Tim, again

So, yeah, that was the camping trip. Trust me, if you had gone, these pictures may have been interesting to you.