This was the Monday morning chat I shared with my co-worker, the illustrious Kari Bland:

Kari: Diane says you went camping this weekend. I was like, ‘No, way.’ Really?

Me: Yes.

Kari: Like in a tent? Or a cabin?

Me: We slept in a tent. We cooked our dinners in the fire. I cried.

Kari: (Howling with laughter.)

Me: What? I’m not a camping sort of girl. I like to be comfortable. I like hotels.

Kari: Couldn’t you choose a campground with bathrooms?

Me: We did. And the outhouse is  what made me cry.

Kari: (howling again.)

Me: It’s just that we were there too long.

Kari: Oh, yeah, how long were you there?

Me: One night, but . . .

(interrupted by fits of laughter now from entire cubicle row.)

Good things about camping: trees that smell like butterscotch, dense lush green surroundings, putting fingers in Christopher Creek.

Also good: needing a jacket, foil dinners cooked on the coals and boyfriends that know to cut willow from the creek bed because “willow is still green, and it makes the perfect marshmallow roasting stick because it won’t burn on the fire.”

Then he carved that stick into a point with his pocketknife, Bear Grylls-style.

And it was the best marshmallow stick I’ve ever had.

During the day, he did this:

Meanwhile, I did this:

While in a hammock, strung up on the side of the creek:

And I stared up at these:

And wished that I was on the deck of a cabin. With a floor, a bathtub, and a mini bar.

It was romantic, being squeezed together in a two-man pup tent. We left the roof off the tent. (Ty says the roof is called a fly.) There was a new moon, Ty pointed out, so we would be able to look up through the canopy of trees and see all the stars.

That part I loved.