Camping Adventures

Finals are over, we had the weekend off from work, what else were we to do?  We went camping!  Hooray!!  Most of the up-the-canyon campsites are still closed due to the fact there is still snow on the ground, so we chose to go to Antelope Island which is conveniently open all year round.  We got all packed up, made sure we had everything we could possibly need, and took the drive up to Syracuse aka the gateway to the island.  What could go wrong?

We soon found out.  After getting there about 5:00, we found our campsite without a problem.  It was a great spot, right by the west beach.  Perfect for watching sunsets.  When we got out of the Jeep, however, we were attacked.  To put it lightly.  There were swarms of little biting brine flies everywhere!  We couldn't believe it!  And of course, after all our careful planning and organizing, neither of us thought to bring bug spray.  Uh-oh.  Well, we thought, they'll go away after a while.  Maybe a fire will help, to kind of smoke them out.  So before the tent is even up, we started a fire.  Didn't help.  And we're not talking a minor irritation here.  We're talking biting, crawling in your ears, nose, hair, etc, making you want to run away screaming little buggers.  We got the tent up and started getting all situated, putting up the air mattress, etc.  And we brought the air mattress with a hole.  Of course we did.  No bug spray and a faulty mattress can mean only one thing.  Emergency trip to Wal-Mart!  I'm pretty sure the guy at the gate was laughing at us as we drove by in a mad rush.  Anyways, we got what we needed, doused ourselves in bug spray (100% deet and everything) and headed back.  I'm pretty sure that the bug spray didn't really help, but luckily the sun was going down and that seemed to be the brine fly cure.  We spent that night playing Uno (which I dominated) and sitting by the fire watching our dutch oven season.

It wasn't too cold either, which I thought was a bonus.  After a very windy night, we woke up to a very cold and slightly rainy outside, but we got up and started to make the infamous mountain man breakfast in the dutch oven.
It turned out super yummy!  I was so proud.  My very first dutch oven meal.  True, all I had to do was throw everything in and stir, but still.  We ended up heading back in the tent after breakfast because it was rainy and cold, played more Uno and took a nap.  We then went in a search for things to do.  And that's when it happened.  The bugs came back.  We don't want to seem like camping wusses or anything, but you have no idea.  It was bad.  So what ended up happening was we took a short hike to the top of a little mountain....
.....saw some antelope (on Antelope Island?  No way.....)......

.....took some pictures, got eaten some more by the bugs, I felt like I had lice, realized we really just wanted to go to a movie, packed up, and went home.  But before you judge, you must understand.  I had little red dots all over my hairline on my forehead and Cory's legs look like he had the chicken pox.  After we went home and showered a few dozen times, we went to the Wolverine movie (which is excellent by the way) and spent the rest of our weekend bug free.  So our three day camping trip was really only one and a half, but we've learned our lesson.  Don't go to Antelope Island in the spring.  The brine flies will eat you.  Seriously.