Camping On Hunting Island

After exhausting ourselves with so much resting in the Shenandoah we pressed south for something like ten hours to Hunting Island State Park in South Carolina. I’ve always believed in the back edges of my soul that the south is a place of fascination and romance, what with the lichen covered trees and the heat and the butter laden food. Certainly, the longer we drove, the more desirous I was of acquiring for myself a peach–well, more than one–and adding to it butter and brown sugar along with heat, lots and lots of heat. Spending three nights did nothing to cast a shadow over my previous hopes and impressions. Probably if I lived there reality would ruin everything.

It was a very long drive–very very long, especially since when I initially plotted out the trip, I thought it would only be 8 hours. The difference between 8 and 10 for a car full of children turned out to be significant. Of course, stupidly, I promised over and over, with tears even, that No Other Drive would be longer than this one and then it turned out that almost every other drive was. What a failure I am, on so many occasions, to my children.

Fortunately, they recovered almost immediately after escaping from their prison of luxury (the car continues to be so comfortable) and despair (clearly we would never get to leave it).

Our tent takes a total of 4 1/2 minutes to assemble and anchor to the ground. We notched it in between these wonderfully exotic trees and cast about for a loo, which again, was Much Much Too Far Away.