We didn’t have a camp fire on our first night at the park.
The temperatures dropped into the 40s just after sunset, and a burn ban had just been issued. And so after our one-pot-Thanksgiving turkey and sweat potato and onion meal that couldn’t be beat, prepared by the Fair and Industrious Trudy in the new iron dutch oven with the help of 30 glowing charcoal briquets, we retired straight into the tent … at 7:00pm … to go to sleep … without a fire … because it was cold … and dark.
Truth be told, the wind howled and blew with such intensity that night that a fire would have been out of the question. And truth be told, as soon as we laid our weary bodies down (onto the inflatable mattress recently procured by the Fair and Industrious Trudy), at … what … 7:05pm we were fast asleep.
And so in the end, although we were disappointed by the burn ban, because we really wanted a fire to warm our faces, and I really wanted to use my lovingly collected (and bone-dry) kindling that I brought along for just such a purpose, the burn ban was frankly no great blow to us on that first day at the park.
We fell asleep in just minutes with layers of blankets over us, an air mattress underneath, and a warm, content dog lying between us.