My First Camp

I say my first camp because tonight is the first time I've actually put up the tent AND cooked dinner under the stars. My previous camping experience would probably fall more under the glamping category. Yurts in Whistler, pre-set camps in Peru and Patagonia...yup, this time I brought my own sleeping bag and learned how to not only set up a tent but roast a marshmallow properly.

Roasting marshmallows you say? There's a trick to it apparently, and oh, it's sacrilegious to eat marshmallows "raw" when you have a bonfire. Anyhows, don't be afraid to burn your marshmallow. It's part of the best part. The way I was told, you need to roll your marshmallow in the flame and when it's done, you should be able to slip off the outermost layer like an onion. Then you put the fluffy treat back in and repeat to get a second layer.

The perfect marshmallow though slides right off, oozing...of course it would take me to the next campsite to perfect this.

One of the joys of camping I find is being in the middle of nowhere, and the skies are dark enough to dark photos of the starry sky. I'm no expert, but I do google the basic settings. For anyone interested, start with an ISO of either 1600 or 3200. Set your focus to infinity, your aperture as wide as possible, and the shutter speed to 20-30 seconds and go from there. As usual I didn't bring a tripod, but we made do with a stepladder and a headlamp to angle the camera up.Read more