Keeping up with the Bragassas: Camping in El Dorado National Forest...or should I say camplaining?

About 2 weeks ago, Brian and I decided to pack up the car (again!) and go camping for a night in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We took our chances that there were campsites available and hit the road. It was about a two hour drive from our house...not so bad considering we just drove across the country. Over those two hours, the scenery changed from our brown (the locals say "golden") grassy mountainy hills, to flat plains, to huge snow capped mountains. We made it to El Dorado National Forest no problem, and found our way up to the Lake Loon campground. Luckily, we got there and a few campsites were still available, so we picked lucky campsite #13. One of the first things we noticed was the huge, metal containers they had on each site. I was thinking maybe that was storage for firewood or some sort of water hook up, but nope! It was a "bear box!" These huge metal containers are used to store food so that the bears don't tear up your tent/coolers and so they don't mess up your car. The bears have been known to mess up campers cars, so we didn't take any chances.

First things first, we had to set up the tent...and that's where the camplaining began. Now the word camplaining originates from a college camping trip Brian and I took with some friends, when I apparently started complaining about something. Someone told me to stop complaining...which turned into camplaining! Anyway, we were putting up the tent when the wheels in my head started turning. I looked at the tent, and then I tried to imagine the queen size air mattress that we brought fitting inside this teeny, tiny, two man tent. I looked at Brian, somewhat puzzled, and told him that I really didn't think a queen air mattress could fit inside this tent. He just blew it off and assured me that he's done this before and that it will fit...so I just shut my mouth and went along with it. We finished setting up the tent (I'm still doubting that anything bigger than a twin air mattress can fit in it), and then went to blow up the air mattress. To blow up the air mattress, we had to plug it into some sort of adapter in the car, which was about 20-30 feet from the tent - Problem #1! So we blow up the air mattress, drag it over to the tent (by now it's all dirty-there goes my camplaining again!) and realize that we might need to let some air out to get it in the tent "door" - Problem #2. I'm sure you can kind of guess where this is going...we let some air out of the tent and proceed to squeeze it into the tent - Problem #3. After wrestling with the mattress, Brian finally gets the whole, entire mattress inside of the tent. He then takes a step back, looks at me, and says "See...it fits!" Let me tell you, it definitely did not fit. The front of the tent was bowed off the ground and the door would not zip shut...technically I guess you can say it fit, but really, it wasn't functional unless we wanted to rip the bottom of the tent off when we laid down. Brian then suggested that we sleep outside on the air mattress...let me remind you that there is a bear box near by if that doesn't say enough - haha! After staring at our hilarious tent for a few minutes, Brian concluded that the other mattress must have been a double...not a queen. Luckily, Brian was smart and prepared and packed real, camping sleeping mats. He was a true gentleman and gave me the better one of the two, which honestly, was super comfortable. After the tent was set up, we took a small hike to see the sunset over Loon Lake, fought off the crazy mosquitos, and then went back to the campsite to eat out dinner and make a fire. When we started making our fire and realized that we didn't have any kindle (the dry, starter wood). Let me just say, we used our resources and paper towels are great for starting fires:)

Finally, it was bedtime, so Brian, Vida and I crawled into our humble abode...I'm not gonna lie...it was a little tight - Vida's a big girl. I slept through the night just fine...poor Brian was not very comfortable and did not get a very good night's sleep. The next day, we hiked around for a few hours, and then drove back home. All in all, we did have a great time and it was absolutely beautiful!! We would love to go back there sometime soon and see more of the park!