Camper For Sale, Driver get 13 MPG loaded

All the shot stops on the starlight hash trail at midnight apparently got to me. I'm still not sure if it was the purple hooters, key lime pie, buttery nipples, beer, rum runners, or one of the other drinks, whose name I cannot recall, was the culprit. Since the teardrop camper kept the heat and noise out quite well, I didn't even stir until about 11 o'clock. Fortunately food was served throughout the day at this event whereas other campouts I would have missed breakfast by a significant margin.

I took it easy for a few hours before trail and took the opportunity to rehydrate with a lot of water and Gatorade. For the trail were were all trucked about seven miles down the road to an area of the Francis Marion National Forest. The trail was excellent as it provide a good experience for the local geography for those that had never been in the area. Having learned my lesson from the Hedon trail, I didn't wear a kilt, but soon realized that shorts were not providing a lot of protection. It wasn't the cuts and scrapes along the way, it was the 27 ticks that I had to pull off me throughout the trail and at the end!

After getting showered up we had circle, dinner, and then spent a while relaxing as it started getting dark. Plenty of songs were sung until the midnight naked hash, though apparently most people seemed to have petered out (no pun intended) from all the running, eating, drinking, and heat. I didn't stay up too long, though did watch several interesting rounds of tippy cup as the referee made a new rule every single round, so it was all entertaining enough.

On Sunday most people seemed to be packing up and heading home relatively early, as seems to be the typical case. Most people were relaxing as well help tidy up the place and wait for the pizza to come in. I found that I became quite popular when I thought to take my beach umbrella out into the pond as I floated around on the floating lounge chair. There was quite a bit of action immediately around me that seemed to center on the shade, not that I was complaining. After getting everything packed, we were among the last of the travelers to depart with only a few locals remaining.

On the way out we stopped by the site of the recent Charleston fire that claimed the lives of nine firefighters. I grew up just over a mile from this site and remember when it was the Piggly-Wiggly grocery store. After I made a quick detour to check out my old homes just down the road, we stopped at the nearby gas station so we could take a look at the makeshift memorials setup along the road.

Quite soon we were on out way back toward Orlando and then on to arrive back in Tampa around two o'clock. It was a long road trip, but along with the companions and sights, it was a lot of fun. I doubt I'll attend next year since it is pretty far in upper North Carolina.

Pictures taken at the campout can be found here: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=vnlbugz.6h2q22hz&x=1&y=-1yqvwi