I should preface this with the fact I have in fact gone camping with my old girl scout troop in cabins and was subjected to one awful week of summer camp in a "cabent" (half cabin, half tent). This was my first time in a full fledge tent.

I would definitely say that I'm NOT the outdoorsy type. The idea of sleeping in a tent, cooking outside, and being surrounded by bugs has never been my idea of "a good time". That being said, it took quite a bit of convincing for me to go on this weekend camping trip.

First, my boyfriend had never been camping and he really wanted to go with his friends that were also bringing their girlfriends.

Second, this trip was for his friend's birthday.

Third, there would be functioning toilets and showers.

Fourth, my boyfriend agreed to pay for my share.

Fifth, if I hated it he would never ask me to go ever again.

So with these conditions I reluctantly agreed to say goodbye to my cosy Manhattan apartment with electricity, heating and AC, a gas stove, and my queen size memory foam with a pillow top bed for the weekend. But was this a huge mistake?

As a Manhattanite, having a car is an expensive luxury and even then it's just not worth it. Fortunately, we were able to hitch a ride with someone else in the group that has a vehicle for our two hour journey to Kittatinny Campground in Mildford, Pennsylvania. As someone who also tends to get motion sickness (which didn't manifest until I was an adult....what's up with that??) I was able to sit in the front the entire ride.

I want to give props to my boyfriend's best friend, who was also on the trip, as he picked us up sleeping bags, a tent, pillows, and an air mattress. Not only that, but set up the whole tent for us before we even arrived. We had a ten person tent which in my opinion comfortably sleeps four at the most.

Our group wound up being about fourteen people and yes....it was a lot. Fortunately, I knew about a third of the people which made this a much less awkward experience. It was also nice to get in some quality girl talk as that's something in my day to day life I tend to lack.

On the first night we made a huge dinner of burgers and steak and grilled veggies. Most of the meals were prepped with love by Ashley and of course all the boys were psyched to show off their grilling skills. One thing we forgot to bring was cooking oil so the veggies turned out.....terrible. They were hard and dry. The birthday boy got a fire going and at midnight his girlfriend brought out a cake for us to celebrate. He was very surprised and it was nice to see him so happy!

The first night wrapped up around 2am, way past my normal bedtime. I laid down

for what was to be one of the coldest nights I've slept through in a long time. Despite being in a tent, in socks with long pants and a long sleeve, zipped up in a sleeping bag in which I was fully engulfed I was still cold. I started waking up around 6:30am, which is typical for when I go to bed too late, and had to convince myself to go back to sleep until around 8am or so.

Finally emerging from the tent, I braced myself for the cold morning and crossed the field to the bathrooms in my pajamas and tennis shoes. As others began to awaken we all agreed the previous night was freezing! Turns out it dropped all the way to 39 degrees Fahrenheit! I'm fully aware people will go out and do winter camping in much colder temperatures, but I'm someone who likes to be warm and snuggly.

Breakfast was eggs, hash browns, and avocado which was actually very comforting. Most of the morning was spent just lounging around and trying to figure out what to do as this was our only full day there. Many of us walked down to the lake as the weather started to warm up and walked along the bank. The water was, however, still quite cold as this was only the beginning of June. This did not stop some of the boys doing a cold plunge though later in the day.

We were lucky enough that a Walmart wasn't too far from where we were staying so we were able to go and pick up many of our missing and needed items such as cooking oil, veggies, and A BLANKET! Does this slightly ruin the illusion of camping when you venture back out into civilization? Yes, but then again I'm not a camper. So for any serious campers out there please forgive my indiscretions. 

During that Walmart trip the couple we went with was also busted for shoplifting, so we had another person in our group pick us up. We told everyone at the campsite what happened and everyone agreed they were not welcome to any future trips. So yeah. That happened.

Lunch consisted of hot dogs, burgers, and more steak. The day continued on into more relaxing, laughing with friends, a campfire with s'mores, and ending the evening with some beautiful fireworks by the lake! An off-duty cop also told us "in order to save him the paperwork we needed to clean everything up as if it never happened". Buzz kill. Plus fireworks are legal in PA, so we think he was just trying to flex. Back to the campfire the boys decided to heat up donuts on a stick and this was just another instance that proved to me why we are not the same species. 

Overnight, it rained! So bless we had a rain cover over our tent! The top of it has a mesh opening for air so otherwise we would have gotten rained on and that would have really ruined the trip for me. The blanket also worked like a gem! I was so much warmer and also didn't wake up too early which made me feel much more rested.

Breakfast consisted of egg sandwiches & Israeli hummus which were actually

quite good! The rain did get all over everything we left outside so that made things pretty messy for clean up and this was the day we were leaving. The rest of the morning was spent breaking down tents and cleaning up the site in order to head home. We had some group members venture out into town for morning beverages and my boyfriend surprised me by having them bring me a matcha latte, which was so kind of him!

With the help of our friends we finished packing up the tent, cleaning up all the garbage and loaded the cars. We embarked on our two hour journey back to NYC and made it home in time for dinner.

So would I go camping again? Maybe. I really did enjoy sitting around with everyone, grilling, and just being somewhere different. I still stand by the fact even with a tent, I don't like sleeping outside. I would prefer to have a cabin. 

I can't say this first experience was perfect and fully admit I may have "cheated" by leaving and going to the store. Besides the few road bumps, I had a good time. I won't, however, be running back to do it again anytime soon.

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