Wow. I just got back from my first weekend off (and weekend away) in a very long time. I didn't take the weekend off before or after Boston, so I can't even remember the last time I had a weekend off... hmmm
Anyways, my whole family took the weekend off and headed up north so Steph and I could see the new "family property." At some point this year, my parents decided that buying some land up north was a good idea. Eventually, they'll build somehting on it, or at least thats the plan for when they retire up there. But, for now, its just 5 acres of land and trees.
We packed up early Saturday morning and headed up north. The drive took us maybe four hours? I can't quite remember. We checked into our amazing condo and packed our gear up to check out the property. We spent a good portion of the afternoon driving around, checking out the area and what there was to do around there, and then my parents showed us around the "neighborhood" if you could call it that. Out of all the properties available up there, all of which have sold, only four people have built houses on it. I guess its still an up and coming development?
My parents took us on a tour of the property and told us about how they wanted everything layed out when they did finally decide to build. They would like to build a two story house (log cabin) on the land, with at least three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The living room, dining room, and kitchen would all be open, and the master suite would be completely seperated from the rest of the house. That way, guests (or my sister and I) can use the rest of the house without disturbing them. Outside, they want to build a big screened in patio to sit out on. There is a big line of trees splitting the property down the middle...they want to leave those trees there, and create multiple lit and paved paths to the back half of the property to a huge fire pit, grill, and outbuilding. Ideally, they want the outbuilding to have a bathroom as well as a utility shed, so no one has to make the trek all the way back to the house.
Of course, these are just plans, you know. Knowing my parents, who are almost always all talk but very little action, I'm not even sure we'll see any of these plans come to fruition. But we'll see. It would be really nice to spend vacations there, especially with what they have planned up there...but lets not get our hopes up just yet.
After they walked us through their plans, we unloaded the truck and "set up camp" I guess you could say. We unloaded chairs for all of us and a big folding table to set up all of our food. My dad dug a fire pit while Steph and I gathered kindling for our fire. Once we got the fire started, we brought out the hot dogs and cooked those over the fire. S'mores followed our open flame cooked dinner, of course...making a ridiculously gooey yet delicious dessert.
Somewhere in all of that, we managed to see a whole flock(?) of turkeys run across the property. Steph and I chased them for a good 15 minutes trying to figure out where they were going to go and so I could get a decent picture of them. Of course, my point and shoot just wasn't meant for action shots at a distance, so I don't have any pictures worth posting. Not like you guys care about seeing pictures of wild turkey anyway. Just before it got really dark, we started to quiet down to see if we could get any deer in the area to walk through our property so we could see them. My parents said that the last time they were there, the deer walked right past them. We saw a ton of deer tracks, but no deer.
Camp had to be packed up in a hurry as the wind picked up to ridiculous speeds and blew half of our camp away. It was rather interesting trying to make sure none of our food blew directly into the fire. As soon as we had everything packed up and started heading back to the condo, the wind picked up even more and brought the rain with it too.
That's about all we did the first day out...once we got back to the condo, we pigged out on snacks and attempted to watch a movie but everyone bailed out because they were so tired. Our original plan was to play euchre, but Steph hates card games and couldn't be talked into playing, even for the sake of teaching my dad how to play....
I'll post some pictures and finish up day two soon...whenever I get around to it.