"Roughing" It

This weekend Sheldon and I decided to go hiking and camping in Harriman State Park, which is conveniently accessible via public transit. We were only going to be out for 1 night... Sheldon and I each had 20 + lb bags of equipment, water, food and "emergency supplies" - note the intense knife in Exhibit A.

When we arrived at the train station before our hike, we began our "roughing" it experience by perusing the local farmers market and getting some delicious pizza, fresh homemade foccacia, and potentially the best cannoli I have ever had (Paige - this might be the Veniero's of Veniero's...). The trail we picked was recommended by the Boy Scouts of America for "young troops", so we figured it wouldn't be too challenging.

This was before I nearly stepped on the biggest snake I'd ever seen, that just so happened to warn me from stepping on it by SHAKING ITS RATTLE - AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH. From then on we let Sheldon lead.

That was a little bit terrifying, but after my heart stopped beating a mile a minute it was back to enjoying the wilderness. Until we realized we had taken a wrong turn on our easy boy scout trail while being distracted by said rattler. We ended up hiking a harder, longer trail, but it ended up putting us on top of a mountain with a great view.

After heading back to our trail (thanks to Sheldon's map and compass, part of the ever present extra equipment) we made it to our campsite with plenty of time to spare. We proceeded with our roughing it by blowing up our air mattress pads and putting up our comfy tent. Then we rehydrated some curry from one of those overpriced but really easy to make tinfoil packets.

All said and told, our couch is much more comfy to rough it on. Plus, there's a much smaller chance accidentally climbing a mountain in between. However, I'd feel a lot more guilty going to sleep at 6p on our couch.