4th of July Weekend

We went camping over 4th of July weekend! Our friends the Lollars joined us in St. Augustine for a fun adventure! 

We met at the store on Friday evening after work to get food and supplies. We probably should have gone in with more of a plan but we meandered around and left with a cart full of things for the weekend.

We left on a sunny Saturday morning but as we got closer to the beach, this is how things looked: 

Also traffic was very backed up.

When we got to the campsite (we stayed at the St Augustine Beach KOA), we were pleased to discover that it was merely recovering from rain, not actually raining, and that most of the thunderstorm had gone away. We set to work setting up camp before the rain returned. 

I don't know if you noticed when you were admiring our fantastic job of making a campsite, but we were next to a strip mall/street, and there was a house on the other side of the fence. So this was really roughing it.

The walk to the beach that evening was pleasant. The rain had gone away and thought it said the beach was a mile away, it really didn't feel like it at all. Jacob and Carson swam for a little but while the rest of us just enjoyed the nice beach. 

Carson found firewood as we walked back. 

Before showers that night, we enjoyed some tasty s'mores by a little campfire that kept going out (wet-ish wood from the rain hasn't helped).

We brought a powerstrip and extension cord (authentic camping) and my dad suggested that we bring our fan. Great idea, dad. It was muggy but this baby made it nice and cool. We bought this fan when we lived in central Washington maybe a month after we got married and it's still going strong - $17 well spent!

Carson made breakfast the next morning - eggs and bacon on an electric griddle. We rounded out the meal with pop tarts.

It was HUMID and sunny on Sunday morning! 

We wanted to see a little bit of St Augustine, so we got in the car and drove about 10 minutes to downtown. We decided to go to Castillo San Marcos, the oldest masonry fort in the US. It was pretty neat! We got to walk all around and also watch a weapons demonstration. 

We drove around for a little bit, went into a Dunkin Donuts to cool off, and then headed back to camp when Kora fell asleep in the car. 

Carson and I headed over to Jacksonville to meet my parents. We're borrowing one of their cars for the month so that we can sell our car and then drive up there to spend time with them and return their car before we move. We had lunch and then got the truck! It was very rainy. 

Jacob and Sarah had started dinner by the time we returned. We had these tasty tin foil meals. 

We drove down to a different part of the beach that evening. It was a lovely night and the breeze out there had big waves and made it seem a lot cooler than it was. 

We had custard and Italian ice at Ritas at the beach. Delightful.

It was a hot evening. We all showered again and we're still very sticky. The thunderstorm that day hadn't done us any favors. We were going to play games but opted instead for conversation. The heat made us all sleepy! 

The next morning, Sarah had planned for us to have cinnamon rolls on a stick, but it was a bit of a Pinterest fail, and we had pop tarts again. It seemed like a good idea, but they were doughy almost everywhere and very smoky. This fire wasn't working out so well, so we thought this could have worked in tinfoil or in a pan, but we didn't bring a pan or tinfoil, so pop tarts won in the end. 

After breakfast, we broke down camp and got ready to head back. We'd gotten everything loaded by 9 - the nice thing about getting up when the sun came up (and when a 2 year old gets up) is that you get going a lot sooner.  

We were going to head straight back but Carson and I decided to hit the beach one last time. We took a long walk and it was lovely. 

Since there were outlets on the way back, we decided to take just one more pit stop to search for coats for Germany. Success at the Eddie Bauer outlet! 

We headed home to mostly blue skies, mostly clear roads, and spent 4th of July evening doing laundry instead of watching fireworks, but we had a great time. Far better than last years disappointing experience!