Posted: I Brake for Unicorns

Nous faisons du camping. Ooh la la.

You know you've had a good trip when you come back with a camera full of pictures of Tim looking truly hilarious and almost terrifying.

Fall break is here (thank sweet baby Jesus) which means that Tim and I had to take another one of our absurd vactions, where nothing makes sense and nothing normal happens. This time we thought it would be even more exciting if we threw nature into the mix and went camping. It was my idea (sound of trumpets, hailing my excellent idea), and it would have turned out exceedingly well if winter hadn't started fifteen minutes after we got out of Shreveport.

Even with the disasters (water leaked in the trunk, soaking clothes, bedding, supplies, etc.; it was rainy and overcast until the day we left; Tim put raw meat in the water supply [don't ask]; we couldn't find the campground until it was too dark to see your hand in front of your face, let alone put up a tent; the campground didn't sell firewood... so on and so forth), it was definately the best weekend I've had all semester, and it's not even Saturday yet.

Hot Springs (Arkansas) doesn't have much to offer in the way of mountains--I'm sorry, I'm a mountian snob, my mountains will always be better than anyone else's (get your mind out of the gutter)--but it was still beautiful. And even though it was cold, it was sort of refreshing. We camped right by a little creek, complete with raccoons digging in the mud at night (they have sensitive paws, according to Animal Planet), and there was a trailhead not more than 150 yards away.

To add to the joys of shish kabob on the grill and sleeping in 7 layers of clothes on the cold, hard, wonderful ground, Hot Springs actually has-- TA DA!-- hot springs. It's nothing like Glenwood, where there's a giant pool, or Buena Vista, where you can go to the natural springs, here they have these bath houses where you buy a bathing package and it's like a spa. It started out as a way to cure people of their various ills using the "natural healing properties of the springs": in the museum they had an "electrotherapy bath" where an electrical current was shot through the water. The springs there put out something like 85,000 gallons of water a day. I don't know if that's a lot, but it sounds impressive.

Anyway, after freezing to death all day yesterday and hiking it out anyway, today was utterly cloudless and Tim and I went to the Buckstaff, the only remaining opperational bathhouse in Hot Springs. There's a men's floor and a women's floor and they basically wrap you in a sheet and then give you all these different water treatments (a mineral whorlpool bath, a sitz bath, a steam bath, a needle shower, hotpacks) and then you get a massage. It. Was. Spectacular.

And, I had a Rueben for lunch. Beat that.

Anyway, we're back in Shreveport, which is absolutely not fun in any way, because it means stupid things like laundry and dishes and homework, but I do get to go to Michigan on Sunday for a conference on book-making, which is nerd heaven. Heaven for nerds. So it ain't all bad. And who could be cranky about coming back to Shreveport when Tim has officially entered his "baby penguin hair" phase (see photo to the right), which is Kristin's favorite, as well as my own and it's highly portable--it's fun no matter where you are.

Oh, and I have to mention that I haven't cared about a TV show since Pirates of Dark Water came on Cartoon Network the summer between 7th and 8th grade, but Mikey and I-don't-know-who-else have got me hooked on stupid Grey's Anatomy, which I shouldn't admit because there are definately NO pirates and no Alex Trebec on that show. Not that Alex was on Pirates of Dark Water, but I digress...