Camping pics! Camping pics! As per usual, expect this blog to be flooded with camping photos for a while. I always go a little nuts when we go camping in the photo-taking department.

As we were hiking down to our favorite spot, we met two hikers coming back up. They said they were leaving, but that there were other campers down at the Good Spot that weren’t leaving until Sunday.

“They’re friendly!” they promised.

WRONG! They were not friendly, “they” being about five guys and two girls in their 20’s. Well, we assumed they were in their 20’s, anyway, judging from the conversation that we strained to hear sometime later that evening. I didn’t get a good glance at them when we hiked down to check out the Good Spot (briefly), but they did NOT seem happy to see us and they had a large dog that barked aggressively when we were near…and multiple times throughout the day. So, there’s that.

Of course it’s a bummer when your special spot is taken, but this is July, after all, a particularly hot summer, and a well-known lake. We set up camp a little further up in the hills. It wasn’t the best–an uneven surface and tons of sharp bushes, but we made it work.

At any rate, it was even closer to the water than the Good Spot, so as soon as the tent was set up we hit the beach! Maggie and Bear Cub went swimming long before we made it down. It was about 90 degrees. Hot baby, hooooot.

Sweaty! I bought this bikini top years ago but didn’t buy a matching bottom. I’m pretty sure when I went shopping for Burning Man “clothes” (back in 2009–oy that seems like forever ago!) I figured I’d be wearing a lot of bikini tops and shorts, and I was right. I’m wearing the running shorts I bought for the Color Run. They did extremely well in the lake water–the neon didn’t fade a bit. Yay for synthetic fabrics! Also shown: a butterfly necklace Erika bought me a million years ago at some hippie festival. Speaking of Erika, I’m going to see her in less than two weeks! Stoked to smell her baby’s head. I NEED TO SNIFF A BABY HEAD.

I get almost manic with joy around lakes and rivers and beaches. I was yammering to Josh about how obsessed I am with the “variegated colors” of the lake and he told me I had been watching too much of that Jewish Princesses show–it’s starting to affect the way I talk. He did an imitation of me and it sounded like Little Edie. Like that’s a bad thing?

Life is short! Leave cute pictures.

My dude. His A.D.D. nature kicked in full force and he went swimming in the lake with his iphone in his pocket. WHOOPS! He actually handled the death of his iphone quite well. I think we both assumed after a good drying-out and charging it would work again, but NOPE. I went swimming with my Activelink and it survived. 30 dollar Activelink: waterproof. 250 dollar (or however much he paid) iphone5: SHIT OUT OF LUCK. And try getting a replacement, good grief! He spent a good hour and a half on the phone last night trying to “work” with AT&T. Talk about a headache.

Getting ready to swim. I am a slow enterer of water, none of this “diving in” crap for me.

Stay tuned for much much MORE! I just can’t be on the computer any longer right now, there’s sunshine out there.