drunk insane camping

also lovingly referred to as DIC. as in, "are you ready for some DIC?" and "that was the best DIC ever!" crude, I know. my wonderful husband came up with it at the first annual DIC.

anyway, we packed up the truck and left Thursday around noon for the 6 hour drive up to Yosemite. the trip surprisingly went by rather quickly. I think because we took a route that actually held your interest along the way, rather than the booooooooring 5 freeway where there is nothing for miles and miles and miles. we arrived to the campsite a little after 6pm. we were greeted by a few of our Bay area friends and my brother-in-law who flew in from Washington state for the weekend.


we unpacked, set up our tent, then started drinking by the campfire. stayed up late talking and making fun of Brian for getting so shitfaced the first night off tequila. good times.







Friday afternoon a few more friends showed up. after they got settled, we played about a billion games of bags. R and Bob proceeded to get trashed. Bob ended up passed out in the bushes for about 4 hours. and his new wife was such a trooper and layed in the bushes next to him the entire time, until I was able to coax him to his tent and blow-up mattress. the last of our group showed up that night (we ended up having 15 people total). more bs'ing by the fire before heading to bed. half of the group was getting up early the next morning to hike up Half Dome inside the park.


Saturday - I slept in. the group hiking Half Dome left around 5:30am. got up and hung out with the rest of the peeps. pretty laid back day. played bags for a while, then sat around talking until dinnertime. had my third hamburger of the weekend. then hung out next to the fire waiting for the Half Dome group to come back. they rolled in a little after 10pm. they are absolutely insane for doing that 16 mile hike UP A MOUNTAIN in one day. I would die. that's why I didn't go. I didn't go last year for the same reason.

Sunday we just hung out. we played bags for a good 10 hours. I think we were going for a Guinness Book world record. but really, not much else to do when you're hanging out in the middle of nowhere. a bunch of random cows also made their way past our campsite. there were even some baby cows. so cute.


we left Monday around 12:30pm. took a different route home through the south part of the park. I think this is going to be our new route. not as many scary, twisty roads where at any moment you can fall off the side of a mountain. I don't do well on these roads. especially when R is squealing the tires around every turn.

it was absolutely beautiful scenery, though. we've decided that at some point we would like to come up to Yosemite to do the real touristy stuff. and rent a cabin or stay in one of the many adorable lodges they have in the park. a trip without camping.




that mountain that looks like a half dome on the right. the thing jutting out. yeah, that's what they climbed. all the way to the top. which is like 8800 feet. you see why I would die?

we got home a bit before 8pm. Labor Day traffic going into Los Angeles sucked. made for slow going. we got home and I took the most amazing shower of my life. I had to wash my hair a few times in the same shower just to make it feel clean again. going 4 days without shampooing your hair will do that to you.

it was a fun trip, like always. I could probably go without heading up there on Thursday, but R likes to get as much camping in as possible.

and we had a few lessons learned. last year was a bit milder than this year. last year I slept in sleep shorts and a t-shirt and we had a couple of heavy blankets. I would get a little chilly at night, but it was bearable. so we decided to bring more blankets and I would dress a bit warmer at night. aye. it still wasn't enough. it was much MUCH colder at night this year. I was a shivering mess as soon as the sun went down. I hardly slept because of it. one night I swear that it got down into the 30's. it. was. freezing. we plan on buying some arctic sleeping bags for next year.

we're also going to try to get a bit more gourmet with our food. we have friends that bring filet mignon and pork tenderloin. it makes our hot dogs and hamburgers look sad. and one can only eat so many hot dogs and hamburgers in a weekend.

we also had some friends hanging out the first night we were there. coyotes. two of them. barking at each other incessantly for 4 hours. right outside our campsite. I didn't get a wink of sleep that night.

all in all it was a blast and I'm definitely looking forward to some more DIC next Labor Day!