Camping, Front-Yard-Style

While my dear Elijah was in town for a visit with her adult man toddler Sam, we headed to Gravel Switch for a few days to take in Emily's log cabin, creeks filled with chrinoids, hiking loops around lakes, four-wheelers, competitive matches of Corn Hole, and even a round of front-yard-camping.
My front yard has a road called High Street running through it, so even though Tommy, Emily's son, was completely unimpressed by front yard camping, I was in full nature retreat mode. There were picnic tables, a fire pit, benches, an already pitched tent, and a stack of firewood. It was like all the work of camping had been done for you and all you had to do was spray on some Deep Woods Off and get to making a fire. And S'mores.

Sam brought the mallows.

And got a lesson from the pros.

Do you remember how good S'mores are? I think they've got to be one of the best desserts ever made, and I'd forgotten all about the extent of their deliciousness until this camp out made me an addict. At one point a chocolate square came down to me or the baby, and I seriously thought about stealing it. Sam removed any say I had in the matter by just taking it right from me and plopping it in his drooly, gooey mouth.

After our sweet binge, Sam played around on a rusty old tricycle and in a gravel filled sandbox hours past his bedtime. Liz and I drank Budweiser and kept an eye out for lightning bugs and chatted about whether or not the lightning and thunder would actually bring rain. Tommy played with a lighter. Liz and I are up for Babywatchers of the Year.
Liz really wanted Sam to see the lightning bugs, and man, does she know that baby. He loved them. Tommy and I would catch one and bring it to him and he'd poke at it and watch it crawl around, and when it would inevitably fall to the ground or fly away, he'd ask for more. I showed him this old trick I learned when I lived at a seedy apartment complex growing up, where you rip the butt off and write your name on your arm and watch it glow. It didn't work as well as I remember, probably because now I feel guilty about it. We also used to pluck their butts off and put them on our ring finger and pretend they were diamond rings.
Since it was a couple hours past Sam's bedtime, Liz put him down after all the lightning bug excitement. Tommy and I hung out up by the house, looking at the stars and talking in a whisper so the baby wouldn't be too jealous. We took breaks to tend to the fire and I decided to break out my poi stuff. Tommy got pretty excited about seeing fire spinning, mostly because "of the chance of death associated with it."

The best part of the front-yard-camping experience, though, was that when the rain -- and by rain I mean holy jesus thunderstorm -- finally did roll in, all we had to do was grab the baby and run up to the house, where we could shower and enjoy climate control while we slept soundly on our beds.