Bad rehearsals make for good shows!

I'm reminded of this old show business adage when I think about our practice hike this past weekend. Lauren and I hiked into the Conecuh National Forest saturday morning. I was very happy to get to spend some father daughter time and test all these new gagets and packs and such. We got to talk about how to use 3 different kinds of compasses and what to do or not do if she were to get lost. We got up close and personal with a nice big armadillo and LEW and I had some nice chats as we walked through some beautiful woods. We even managed to link up with Casey in the middle of the woods where two trails meet(no simple feat if you havent tried it). As we proceeded up the northern loop trail however I must admit I was beginning to run out of gas by late afternoon. I had these visions of pine straw covered campgrounds with picnic tables and such, but there were none and good camping locations just wern't showing up. Finally we spotted a clearing that apparently is an old pond bed in wetter weather and pitched camp. Of course as soon as the sun went down the temperature plummeted with it. This was not completely unforseen, I knew, and was even hoping it would get somewhat cold. The whole reason for going out there was to test our equipment and ourselves. To find out how well our bags would work, test the old hot water bottle trick and for my part to try out a new liner I bought for my bag that was claimed to make it warmer. Well, cold we got. We ate a quick meal of ramen and hung our bear bags and hopped in our sleeping bags by about six thirty. And there we stayed until about six thirty the next morning. Whew! it got seriously cold. I read 25 degrees at one point in the night before my glasses frosted up and I couldn't use them any more. Very cold. It did kind of take the starch out of all of us, but, I still feel it was a major success. Thomas Edison when asked about his most famous discovery remarked that he now knew over ten thousand ways not to make a lightbulb. So........... we had a nice day of hiking followed by twelve hours of freezing in our tents, followed by and abreviated second day due to my lack of fitness and a pack that is definately way to heavy. If you ask me we learned a lot.