Spontaneous Overnight Trip to Camp

Yay!  We got lucky and were able to go up to camp today and spend the night.  It was low key, just the 3 of us.  Hurricane Irene came through but wasn't bad at all-we missed the whole thing being cut off from the rest of the world!  Good news is that THE RIG IS UP!!  Whoop whoop!  We met a nice engineer-y guy who told us they were down about 400 feet and if all went well they should be where they need to in about 3 weeks.  Wow, I can't believe it's actually happening!  So here's what the rig looks like, with Irene looming in the background...

 approaching the rig heading from camp (above and below)

 ...top...and bottom...

 the dump trucks were lined up at least 8 deep for something-not sure exactly what...we started talking about it and then met the engineer and got sidetracked...

 last shot before we ran from Irene...she looks nasty, right??

We awoke to rain the next morning and made a leisurely and creative breakfast, then took a ride...

 found some interesting fungii...

 ...it was actually a really pretty bright orange-the natural light of the caopy didn't allow it to show up well (that was straight up Nat Geo with that comment!)

 I loved these guys...right in the middle of the road.  The bigger of the two is about 8" high and because they were in the middle of the road, we had to go over them.  We knocked over the big one which made me a bit sad.  I love how there's a little pool of water in the big one.

 Gazing out the back window through the forest...quiet and content...

 We didn't happen to see any wildlife at all that morning, not to our surprise.  Throughout the ride we told Mitchell that he was our navigator, just to make it more fun for him, plus we are trying to teach him the different names of places on the property.  So at our last turn before camp, we asked him which way to go, he told us, but for some reason Reese stopped the Jeep and put down his window.  Just as he did this little guy hopped right in onto his lap...

 ...a big, beautiful walking stick!!  He was about 5-6" long-a good sized one!  So there always is some kind of wildlife to be found!  But actually, we're lucky he found us!

After our ride we went back to the cabin and packed it up.  It was a quick 22 hour mini-vacation but so worth it!  Going to camp is like going to another planet!