I communicated my reticence by smiling and dutifully packing the car up. I know who's in charge around here. Off we went to Cagle Recreation Area, in Sam Houston Forest.
It wasn't as bad as all that, because our planned two nights had to be reduced to one due to "dangerous thunderstorms" in the area. Much as I love to tell Americans how weak they are whenever things are cancelled for rain, camping in a forest during a thunderstorm did not seem the sensible way to assert British dominance. So we arrived on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning and only had to wait until the evening for the ground to dry out to pitch the tent.
We were camping with Pete's best friend from school, Elena, together with her Dad J.P. and cousin Laura. Elena and Laura are Chilean, and J.P. works as a translator, so Hannah and I spent the weekend speaking Spanish, mainly by saying English words in a Spanish accent the way Brits have been doing on the Costa Del Sol since the 70's. Our friends found this consistently hilarious and I know will be asking to camp with us again soon.
Pete and Elena have already decided they're going to get married, although given they're six-years-old and we don't live in Alabama, this isn't likely to happen soon. Their full-on excitement and gleeful craziness whenever they're together is very endearing...for about five minutes. I had flashbacks to when Hannah and I met at uni, and would like to apologise belatedly to all our friends there.
But the weekend was a huge success, and we once again survived in the harsh and unforgiving environment of a Texan campsite (the hot showers only stayed on for five minutes before you had to push the button again! Shocking). Thankfully we're now into summer, which means even Hannah demurs from nights in a tent, waking up glued to your sleeping mat with your own evapourated sweat. Maybe it's time to buy a caravan.
I don't think this tree came down the night before we arrived, but I'm pleased we avoided the possibility.
Oh look, some more incredibly dangerous reasons to camp in Texas!
Pete and Elena, star-crossed by a shared love of Pokemon.
There's only one way to toast a marshmallow!
Have bourgeois liberal arts parents, get bourgeois liberal arts children.
Cooling off in the lake.
End of camp selfie, and amazingly we don't look too filthy!
Cute. In small doses.
