60 Seconds on the Perfect Evening

It’s cool out, probably around 50, and very still. We’ve got a campfire going, lighting up our part of the dark, and we’ve roasted our hotdogs and made our s’mores. A raccoon keeps coming up and mooching food off the soft touches in the family, while grumpy ol’ dad keeps saying “It’s a wild animal—stop feeding it!” as though it’s not standing on its hind legs doing everything short of playing the banjo and singing show-tunes to earn its handout. The crickets and frogs are chirping away in the bayou swamp that’s just a few feet from our campfire, and Nan and the kids are laughing about some story Kerby and Joelle are both trying to tell at the same time.

We’ve seen so many wonderful sights and still have many more to see, but it’s moments like these that we’d most like to bottle and bring home. And since I was just bringing some food in off the picnic table (so Rocky doesn’t make off with it when we aren’t looking), I thought I’d try and send a bottle out to you via the blog. Hope you get it.

Well, there’s a fire burning away out there without me...


(Here’s Rocky the Mooching Raccoon along with a picture of our campsite here at Sam Houston Jones State Park in Lake Charles, LA. First, water and electric are usually behind your camper in campgrounds, but not here for some odd reason, hence the hose going across—and second, yes, we really are that close to the swamp.)