Camping - Good Times with Good Friends
Friday, after class and a quick nap, I embarked on a camping trip with a few friends to the other side of the island…the Kona side. We camped at Spencer’s beach park, north of the actual city of Kona and boy was I impressed. We arrived at the camp site around 5 pm, leaving just enough time to set up camp (tents, sleeping bags, etc.) before enjoying the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my entire life. No, I’m not exaggerating, either! Hilo’s on the eastern side of the island, so although we have wondrous sun rises, I had never seen a Hawaiian sunset until this past weekend.
After watching the sunset, we were all ready to grub out, so the guys fired up the grill and before long we were all settled in with our hamburgers and hotdogs. Next came the music! John, one of my friends, brought his guitar along and we had a good old fashioned jam session around the camp fire. Everybody sang and danced and laughed!
The boys decided it was time to go crab hunting, which was quite a new experience for me! So, we took flashlights and headed down to the beach - the goal was to shine the light, blinding the crabs so they’d be still enough to catch them. I was too busy jumping around trying to avoid getting pinched that I wasn’t much help, but it was still a neat adventure.
After crab catching, we were hungry yet again so we whipped out our smores materials! Yummm….roasted marshmallows, Hershey’s chocolate, and crispy graham crackers united together for the perfect taste. C’mon now, camping’s not really camping without these delectable little treats. I was amazed that two of the girls had never had smores before. Don’t worry – we took pictures to document their joyous expressions after the first bite (and the sticky marshmallow all over their faces too).
After hanging out around the campfire some more, we were all pretty tired and decided to call it a night. The girls headed off to one tent while most of the guys slept out under the stars. As we were all snuggling into our sleeping bags, Kelsey goes, “Hey, do you guys hear that scurrying noise?” Before she could get the last words out of her mouth, Jess screams, “CRAAAABBB!” All 8 of us were out of our bags and away from the tent in about 5 seconds flat. We heard snickering coming from the guys and immediately knew what had just occurred. Boys just never grow up, do they?! (Yes, they decided to pull a prank on us by putting the crabs caught earlier in the girls’ tent. Not funny!!!)
After we forced the boys to check and re-check our tent for more critters, we all finally got to sleep. The next day was filled with swimming, kayaking, and snorkeling at our own private little beach. It was a wonderful weekend.
There’s nothing better than spending some good time with good friends!
Until next time….Aloha!
