camping in summer

Luckily, we've had straight up summer weather the past few days....and we decided to go into the forest...and stay there!  Camping is one of my favorite things to do, and even though I thought we may be jumping the gun a little camping so early in the season, the weather was on our side, and we had an amazing little trip.

We went camping at Szilvasvárad, an awesome little place to go hiking around.  We've been there before, but only did the 2 mile short trails, and drove up the mountain to take another shorter trail to an overlook...which was awesome because we saw this last fall

But this was different....it's prime hiking season, and biking season for that matter!  We thought it would be a good idea to bike up the mountain.

We passed that first overlook within the first hour of our trip and continued to bike (slash hike the really steep parts!) for another 5-ish hours....its was about 15 KM to our destination--Bél Kő--uphill. 

One thing is for sure, though, camping, hiking, and photographing my journey is one of my favorite ways to spend time! 

I really don't mind moving and being active as long as I'm in nature and I have an ever-changing view on my way....It keeps things interesting, because we all know how easily bored I get.  This is why I can't go to the gym....I need a workout with a big finale!  And boy did I get one. 

From the top, we could see down on all the other surrounding mountains, we were about 1 KM high.  It just made me feel really, really small.  We sat, breathed the crisp mountain air, and felt like we were on top of the world. 

Our descent was fun, and that's what it felt like, a descent!  I felt like I was descending in an airplane rolling the whole way down this mountain and seeing everything we saw slowly on the way up, quickly in reverse.  It was such a good feeling to fly down this mountain like a bird...and it took a little over an hour to get down, so I had plenty of time to revel in this feeling of weightlessness. 

The camping part always includes a lot of laughs:  Somehow making a really incredible dinner of potatoes, veggies and beans over the fire, figuring out how borrowed sleeping mats work, sleeping at an awkward angle all night, figuring out how to open the bottle of wine we brought (of course no corkscrew! luckily a nice lady let us borrow hers, but we were ready to get creative), getting all the equipment back into those little tiny bags for storage.....The list goes on.

I always feel a little better after I go camping...I need to get back in touch with my inner cavegirl every now and then.  And I always get a little sad packing up our new little "home" we made....To be honest, I always have the urge to go into the forest and stay there--for a long time.  I get really tired of relying on technology so much! 

The most perfect peace is the quietness of the forest, freshness of the air and the beauty of nature--to me anyway! 

Happy Earth Day!