Heflin Camp

Very excited about a camping trip this weekend. I leave 6am tomorrow... This would be fine and normal but I forgot about plans I had made several weeks ago. I'm seeing the final Harry Potter tonight at midnight... Perhaps tomorrow I'll be so excited about the trip I wont feel tired?! If you are wondering why I'm not embarrassed to be such an avid Harry Potter fan, it's because I've been with them since the beginning... and I was only 11!

Every year for the past 80 years, my family (my mother's family) has been camping on the Talapoosa River in Alabama.

 It's perfect, the river is dammed, so all day long the deepest the river gets is about 5 feet, and the bottom is smooth pebbles and rocks. The water is so clear you can see the bottom. My grandmother through the years has built a stone wall going the entire length of the camp, with steps going down into the water. No one gets muddy! We put our tents right on the edge over looking the water. The water rises every afternoon between 4:30 and 6pm, the water obviously becomes much swifter... We (all my cousins and I) run to the head of the camp, jump in the water, and float to the end of camp... awesome!
We have an outhouse and shower house, and a shelter that we cook and prepare food under. The picture below is of the shelter during a thunder storm... Tents get wet, so we all go to the shelter.

The camp also has fresh water directly from a mountain spring! I'll take pictures when I'm down there this weekend and post them... The Heflin Camp is my favorite place on earth!
Also.... I have found a backpack in an old trunk in my bother's old bedroom... and it is Redneck delicious!

Apparently this gem belonged to my mother in the 1970's... I remember going "hiking" around my family's farm when I was little pretending I was a pilgrim... It isn't big enough for what I need it to do, but I think I will keep it around. Even though some of the straps have broken and it is now being held together by plastic string, it's such a fond memory! I think my nieces (I have 5) might enjoy using it the same way I did.

Off to pack, ciao!