Campfires

First off, Happy Birthday to our wonderful daughter Andrea, who is also, along with Gage our Son-in-Law, co-producer of the two coolest, neatest, smartest, and best looking Grandsons anyone could hope for. We hope you have a great day and can find some time for yourself between keeping an eye on those two little boys and your work and your house and ?? We love you and wish you all the best today, and every day... but especially today... but every day too... oh, you know what we mean.

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When we're "camping" (as opposed to RV parking) we both enjoy an evening campfire. While many others are huddled in their campers, the tell-tale blue-gray glow of the TV sneaking out around tightly drawn shades, we prefer watching and poking at, feeding new fuel to, and being mesmerized by this little chemical reaction we've learned to love. It soothes the soul, melts away worries, and somehow brings one into contact with that power greater than all others. And what's really great about it is that usually the cosmos is spread out above the little campfire... millions of burning stars that add perspective to nature's scale and spectacle, and which I like to watch as much as the campfire.

In the past few months we've had far too few campfires because we've been mostly in RV parks. Many RV parks don't allow campfires at all because smokey fires and RVs packed tightly together like soda crackers don't mix very well. And that's understandable. We, too, have become annoyed when someone next door starts a campfire and the prevailing wind is directly toward the bus-house. Too little common sense and consideration for others can cause ill feelings.

But if the wind is right, and there's plenty of space between you and the next nearest camper, there's nothing like a campfire to make you feel like you're, well, camping... outdoors and in touch with nature.

You can probably tell we've had a bunch of campfires lately, almost every night. COE parks are usually campfire friendly and we've thoroughly enjoyed every one.

Trying to figure out if it's smoke or pollen making my eyes water...
Thom