This weekend, the warm weather forecast won out over the writing deadlines that begged me to stay indoors. Nature called, so in response we started packing our supplies and invited friends to come out for the first camping trip of the year.

Headed on our first camping trip of the year with my backseat drivers

Our camping trips are usually somewhat spontaneous; during the week we decide that the weekend weather looks nice enough, giving us a couple days to prepare. Because of this, I keep most of my camping supplies and First Aid Kit stored in a big Rubbermaid bin (dubbed The Big Blue Camping Bin), ready to grab and go. I make a separate Camp Cooking Prep List for groceries, food, and commonly used items to pack from the kitchen. Then I check it all against my Master Camping Checklist.

I start by taking inventory of the food on stock to see what I already have on hand, and what I still need to buy. It helps to plan a menu for the weekend, to make sure you have everything for each meal. We were leaving on Friday afternoon after lunch, so our camping menu looked like this:

Friday Night: brats & beans
Saturday Morning: eggs, bacon & berries
Saturday Noon: burgers
Saturday Night: pork chops & sweet corn
Sunday Morning: eggs & bacon

After we pack my car with the blue bin, cooler, dry food storage, chairs, tent and tarps, we layer sleeping bags, blankets and pillows on top of everything to make a soft, comfy layer of bedding for the dogs during the car trip – maximizing limited space and giving them booster seats to gaze out the window (or the windshield, as in the picture above.)

Once we arrive at Findley State Park in Wellington, Ohio, the dogs are ready to run around and explore. They secure the perimeter of our campsite, chasing critters and marking territories while we set up camp, pitch the tent and start a fire.

By the time the tent is up, mattress inflated, and bed made, these spoiled house dogs are ready to relax in the comforts of home – or rather, of a “Pup Tent.”

You can see that we lay a tarp underneath the tent, giving us a “doorstep” where we can kick off our shoes before entering. This is also where we set up the dog food and water.

Little did we know that the zipper on the tent would break later in the evening, leaving us without a way to close the tent. Fortunately, bugs haven’t come out yet for the season, the dogs didn’t sneak out, and no other critters sneaked in. A few safety pins, plus a couple of camping chairs propping the flap shut from the inside, were all that separated us from the great outdoors.

Settled in, now it’s my turn to explore the surroundings. Our site is set back off of the road, giving us plenty of peace and privacy from the few neighboring campers around us. Although camping season hasn’t officially started yet, the campgrounds start to fill up as more neighboring campers filter in throughout the afternoon.

This is my quiet time, before the rest of our friends arrive at the campgrounds. I slip into the woods with my trusty watchdogs, looking for interesting plants, flowers, trees and treasures. I find a fern uncurling like a waking plant stretching her spring limbs after spending the winter tucked up tight. I find two yellow, plastic Easter eggs left over from a family’s celebration a few weeks ago – one still hiding a Tootsie Roll inside – which, my boyfriend feels the need to remind me, I should not eat.

As our friends start to arrive and set up camp, we kick back and relax. Our work is done for now, so it’s time to lounge in the hammock and meditate, with nothing but tree-filtered sunlight, chirping birds and nature surrounding me.

 Oh, and this guy, too. He’s great camping company, not to mention a smart, skilled survivalist.

As the sun starts to set behind the trees, we shift into dinner mode. We stoke up the fire then let it burn to cooking strength.

Brats and beans go on the grill, and after a few rotations and a lot of ravenous looks, the first night’s camping dinner is served. As simple as the meal is, the smokey campfire flavor and the woodsy setting make it taste like a well-earned forest feast.

And then, of course, it’s followed by the best part about camping: the gooey, sticky, gluttonously sweet s’mores. If summer itself had a signature flavor, it would be that glorious trifecta of roasted marshmallow, crumbly graham cracker and melted milk chocolate.

With daylight dying, we huddle closer together around the fire, entertained merely by the dancing flames casting their orange glow across our faces. The dogs, done exploring for the day, are collapsed in sleepy, cuddly heaps on our laps, basking in the warmth of the fire. A few friends who couldn’t camp for the night swing by to share a few drinks and laughs – neither of which are entirely kid-friendly. (But to the park rangers reading, I will go on record that we drank only lemonade, coke and juice, of course.)

Fell asleep gazing up through the tent ceiling to the view of a canopy of trees silhouetted by the nearly full moon. Woke early to birds singing and sunlight streaming through the windows.

J starts up the fire while I take the dogs on a morning walk, before most of the other campsites around us have risen. With the fire blazing and coffee brewing, we impatiently urge our friends back to life so we can start making breakfast. Breakfast is usually my favorite meal of the day anyway, and campfire food is preferentially better than home-cooked food, which makes camping breakfast the best meal of the weekend. Between J’s legendary scrambled eggs, heaps of bacon and fresh blueberries, it was quite a way to start the day.

Suki is back to her watchdog log, where she has good perspective on all approaching squirrels. In the background behind her, you can see my makeshift kitchen sink – a collapsible plastic bin where I wash our dishes from breakfast while J lounges on the hammock with his Nacho dog and a cup of camping coffee mocha. (To our campfire-brewed coffee, we added cream and sugar and chocolate.)

It’s already turning into a beautiful day. I explore around the campsite one more time, in full daylight, and snap a few more nature-inspired pictures before my phone battery dies.

Fueled by our fantastic breakfast, we headed out for a game on the campground’s disc golf course. Starving by the time we get back to our campsite, we fix a late lunch of burgers and sweet corn on the cob on the grill. Our friends take off, leaving us alone for night two of camping. We lounge around for a while, placing a blanket in a shady spot where we can relax. Later in the afternoon, we take a nice hike around the lake. Still stuffed from lunch and exhausted from walking, we opt for a “light” dinner of s’mores instead of cooking up more food. We retreat to bed a little earlier this time; wake up and repeat another yummy camping breakfast before we break down camp and head back home – where it will take me several days of gazing out my office window, wishing I could be lounging in a hammock, gazing up at the trees instead of being confined to my desk, before I adjust to the real world again.

 Read more about Fresh Domestic camping here.