Anniversary in a Lean-To

If you know me at all, you know there is one thing I fear. Mice. When my husband suggested we spend our wedding anniversary in a lean-to, I was nervous. A city mouse I am not. I love camping and think there's nothing more cozy than being in a sleeping bag. Well, in a sleeping bag inside a tent with no chance of a mouse coming in. Drew assured me there would be no mice and so I agreed to spending our anniversary tent-less. I thought since it was our second anniversary I would do two new things: 1) sleep in a lean-to and 2) eat a dehydrated meal of some sort.

We headed off to Lost Pond in hopes that no one else decided to sleep in the Biesmeyer lean-to for the night. We hiked just over two miles into Lost Pond on the side of Hurricane Mountain.

When we arrived, we found the lean-to empty and no signs of mice. Happy hour was upon us and so we enjoyed a tall Labatt Blue and appetizers that consisted of pepperoni, Swiss Army sliced cheddar cheese and peanuts.

Drew gathered some wood so we could enjoy our romantic, gourmet dinner of sandwiches and soup with the soft glow of a fire.

I was careful about sandwich crumbs tempting mice and put any food that had fallen onto the forest floor in the fire.

Being without television and a computer, we were forced to interact and so we found ourselves playing cards while we let our lovely dehydrated strawberry cheesecake set. I also brought some "Bear Poop" a friend gave us and thought it would compliment the cheesecake nicely.

That bright yellow caterpillar to the left was curious of our dessert and turned out to be the only critter that was interested in our food. I could only eat a few bites of the cheesecake and left the rest for Drew. After my first experience with dehydrated food, I wasn't surprised that critters stayed away from our bear canister. Even the mice stayed away and I was actually able to sleep a bit! If I had a pillow, I probably would have slept more, but overall it was a great anniversary!