The Good, The Bad, and the Woefully Unprepared

The first rule in camping is to be prepared. Remember that and I'll get to it later. My brother and I went to the new campgrounds at DeSoto State Park over in Alabama the other weekend. The Park is beautiful, The campsites were excellent, and the hiking trails were great. There is some much to see that you need a good week there, but we only had one night. Waterfalls, mountain streams, historical ruins, flowers, wildlife, the place has it all. Ir is definitely worth the trip. If you go tent camping you most get the primitive sites. They are well spaced out, you can drive right up to them, and the other sites are very nice but set up for RV's. All the ones with hook ups are very nice, but have gravel pads, and close together. We started the first day off by trying to bike down to the ruins, but quickly realized that I was going to kill myself. It was my first shot at Mtn biking and way to advanced of a trail for me. We decided to keep the bikes on the family trail. It turned out to be a very good starter trail with just enough challenge to keep it interesting. We them hiked to the ruins of an old quarry which was neat. Yeah I said neat! After a quick rest and lunch we hiked to some waterfalls which were great, not real big, but beautiful. Back at the campsite we attempted to start a fire with some really green wood we got from the country store with little success. After gathering up some good pine though it was roaring in no time. Ate some hot dogs and climbed into Tweetie for some shot eye. Remember the first rule? It was 70 degrees out and the low called for high 50's and 60's. I had 2 fleece bags and was sleeping like a log until about 3am. I didn't prepare to be cold. I've been camping in 17 degree weather before, and have never been so cold. I thought I was going to freeze. The problem was that I didn't have Jess's body heat to keep me warm. After a very cold night we got a early start to get my blood flowing. We decided to hike to 2 other waterfalls, which were just as good if not better than the first 2. The trail we took got very narrow and snaking after the 1st falls. I was beginning to think that we had hiked clean out of the park. All in all it was a great trip and I plan on going back to hike other trails, which were all wonderful, and see the rest of the waterfalls and historical sites very soon. DeSoto is my new favorite pace in North AL and GA.