Beartown.

Last weekend, we drove out west for a long-awaited camping weekend with our dear friends from college. We met up in Monterey, Mass., at a state forest called Beartown, and there we set up camp on a lake and enjoyed a weekend of sleeping under the stars, building campfires and other such camp-like activities.

Andreas and I went camping this summer by ourselves (bought the tent, the air mattress, the cooler, the fire grate, etc.) and I have to say I like fall camping much better. For one thing, no bugs. For another, sweatshirts and cozying up and actually appreciating the fire’s warmth. But we did severely underestimate how low the temp would drop at night and how grossly inadequate sheets and a single old blanket would be.

On Saturday we had a big breakfast at a diner in Great Barrington and then continued on to Goshen for some climbing near D.A.R. State Forest. One of the couples in our group climb quite often and had all the gear. They were nice enough to guide us through the whole process, set up the line, loan us their gear, and talk us out of a panic when we reached a spot and began shrieking “BUT THERE’S NOTHING! NOTHING TO HOLD ON TO!”

After climbing, Andreas and I headed over to Pittsfield to visit Dick’s Sporting Goods and bought ourselves some good old fashioned sleeping bags! I couldn’t believe it when I woke up and asked everyone if they were just as frozen as we were the night before and they weren’t.  The secret? Sleeping bags! DUH. For some reason I didn’t realize that you were supposed to use sleeping bags with the air mattress. I thought sleeping bags were for the ground. Rookie mistake. Anyways, we picked up some super discounted mummy sleeping bags from Marmot and they were a DREAM to sleep in!

Now Ava, I’m not so sure how much she loves camping. I know she loves the fact that we let her sleep with us when we’re camping (well, she pretty much insisted on it and since she so rarely insists on anything, we relented). I know she loves any kind of hiking or walking in the woods, especially when she can be off leash. I’m not sure how much she loves campfire time. There’s no real place for her to curl up when the ground is all cold and wet and muddy. We try to pull her up on our laps but she’s a bit too big for that to be really comfortable for anyone involved. Plus I think she’s just kind of scared of the fire. She was shaking the whole time we were sitting around it.

But when we got home, she curled right up on the blanket we had brought with us and refused to budge. So who knows!

We had such a great time hanging with everyone at this beautiful spot. And now that we have everything we need to be comfortable, we want to go camping one more time before it gets too cold.