First Fire

Believe it or not, I was a Girl Scout for 14 years. One of my favorite things to do as an older Girl Scout was build "one match fires." As the name suggests, you build your fire but then get only one match and one chance to light it. By about 14 years of age, I had gotten pretty darn good at it - even when camping in damp Washington State forests.

Being the one match fire queen, I was excited to flex my fire building muscles for my husband on our trip. Sadly, the universe conspires against me.

The first night it was so dark by the time we got back from seeing the Yarn Harlot that neither of us could see well enough to gather sufficient materials nor to really construct an effective fire structure. My first one match attempt in years was so lame that I told my pyrohusband he could be in charge of the fires from now on. I did feel better, though, that it took him a lighter and 15 minutes to start a fire that only lasted 5 minutes or so since the combination of very dark and very wet do not roaring campfires make.

The next few days we spent at Joe's parents (where I might add, it rained every night) so no fires on two counts. Our next camping site after that was in Virginia, where it had rained the night before so everything was soaked through. If that weren't enough to keep us from getting a fire going, almost immediately after finishing dinner, the heavens opened and boy did it rain.

Tonight, however, a few hundred miles away in Alabama, things are looking up. We have a beautiful campsite about 50 feet from a lake and since it hasn't rained in days wood is nice and dry for fire building. Husbandito did a great job getting a nice fire going. It makes me wish I had a can of apple pie filling that we could use to make apple pies for dessert in our pie irons. Mmmm pie iron pies....